Luminary Uprise
by JaceyRae
Summary: The bad guys join the good guys! The ultimate threat has awakened! Crossovers, adventure, romance, and humor lie ahead in the greatest journey Sora has ever taken! Lots of pairings, but mainly SoKai, Larxel, and MaruZeku...to start.
1. Cloaked Scheming

Luminary Uprise

A Kingdom Hearts II fan fiction with various crossovers

A/N: The Rosalina x Demyx trilogy precedes this. If it doesn't make sense, read that first. Otherwise you should be able to get through it with minimal confusion. Also, it's canon up to II and should be fine working with Birth By Sleep and 358/2 Days, but it's most certainly not going to line up with III.

1

1: Cloaked Scheming

Nine Nobodies, tucked away in the deepest basement of Castle Oblivion, mourned their current situation.

"How did you stand being in this dusty, musty room for so long?" Xigbar asked Zexion between sniffles. "And I thought you were the one with the sensitive nose."

Zexion shrugged. "Sacrifices."

"I'm still kind of worried…" Luxord looked around. "It's just the nine of us. There should be ten of us. What the heck happened to Demyx?"

Lexaeus shrugged.

"Does this mean that there's a way you can die," Luxord said, trembling, "and go so far that not even evil resurrection can bring you back?"

Lexaeus shrugged again.

Resurrection: the method that the Organization's leader had used to bring his precious Organization back to life. He thought they would help him take over the worlds again, and come back in greater force than before…but they had other plans.

Xigbar, Xaldin, Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, Saïx, Luxord, Marluxia, and Larxene had gathered in this secret place in order to discuss how they would break away from their leader. They were sick of being used…tired of not being allowed to live their own lives…and many of them were, at last, through with the cruelty they were forced to enact on the other worlds. However, they were not free to go. Their leader was more powerful than all of them combined…as well as more powerful than before.

And so they gathered, hoping to find a way to overthrow him.

"This can't go on," said Zexion. "It just can't. So here's what I think we should do…"

"When did you get put in charge?" Saïx challenged.

"Shut up," said Marluxia, and Vexen shot number VII a glare. Zexion in charge just seemed…obvious.

"You could be our new Superior, you know," said Xaldin, who had hardly known anything but following the crowd.

"No." Zexion turned his head away from Xaldin. "There will be no new Superior. As soon as the current Superior is down…we're free. I don't care what the rest of you do with your lives. I'm going to find myself someplace quiet and never come out."

The others nodded. They hadn't the capacity to feel bad for the self-pitying Zexion. In fact, they were used to his gloom.

"I think," Zexion suggested…knowing it was risky…"if we had the right kind of weapon, we could take him down."

"I wish Axel was here," said Larxene, surprisingly.

"Why do you want HIM here, of all people?" Xaldin asked.

"If what I heard is correct, he rebelled after Roxas left. Who better to help us than an expert in rebellion?"

"I'm an expert in rebellion," Marluxia shot back.

"Roxas!" Xigbar moaned. "Why did you have to bring up the little dude? He was the only one who had a chance of defeating the Superior! Plus, he was cool!"

"He DID defeat the Superior," Zexion pointed out, "in both of his forms. Roxas just did it as Sora. Dare I say it…I wish Sora was on our side, just once."

The others, shockingly, nodded in agreement.

"Roxas, wherever you are…" Zexion said to the ceiling.

"Come on, Axel," said Xigbar. "We made it out of the dead. So can you!"

"Demyx, you dummy," Larxene called to no one, "where are you?"

"So it's settled," said Zexion. "We have talked for an hour, and…we are no closer to finding the perfect weapon than we were an hour ago. Disappointing, but…I won't give up."

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

"The Superior…" Marluxia backed up against the wall, cringing.

"I'll go check this out," said Saïx. He portalled out of the room.

He portalled back in, stunned. "You wouldn't believe…"

"What is it?" the others all said.

Saïx opened the door.

Axel leaned casually against the frame of the door, grinning at the rest of his former Organization. Behind him, Sora smiled and waved energetically.

"Hi, everybody!" he greeted.

Luxord's eyes rolled up into his head, and he hit the floor, unconscious. That was the one event he wouldn't have bet on in a thousand years.

"You called?" Axel asked.

The two were mobbed by the other Nobodies.

"Where WERE you?"

"Didn't you die?"

"I thought you'd want to DESTROY us!"

"Um…aren't you, like, not on our side?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Axel yelled. "One at a time! Okay, I'm obviously not dead. Naminé saved me after I faded into the darkness. Then I went to live on the Destiny Islands with Rox—er, Sora."

"I felt like someone was calling me in my heart about an hour ago," Sora explained. "I could tell it was made of darkness, this call…but somehow, I knew the darkness needed help. As soon as Axel and I figured out where the call was coming from, we realized it was YOU. Now, I wasn't really a fan of your actions, and I'm not gonna let you mess up any more worlds, but I don't really know that I approve of your suffering. At any hands but mine, anyway." He winked. "I'm kind of addressing you as Roxas, not as Sora. We did use to be a team, remember?"

"Worry not," Zexion sighed. "We are not going to be 'messing up' any more worlds. Our target is just one man…the Superior."

"We're sick of him!" Xigbar spat.

"I don't know that I want to go about finding my heart this way," said Vexen. "I'd rather pursue its replacement through experiments in synthesis…not by forcibly ripping the hearts from others."

"He just treats us as his slaves," said Larxene. "If there's one thing I hate, it's being a slave." She clenched her fists. "I'd rather be NICE."

"And that's saying something," Marluxia muttered.

"Taking down Xemnas, without hurting the rest of the worlds?" Sora pondered the situation. "I guess you can count me in."

"Me too," said Axel. "Anything for a chance to kick that man's butt from here to Oblivion."

"This IS Oblivion," Zexion pointed out with a sigh.

Luxord jerked up from the floor with a start. "Did Zexion just make a PUN?"

Sora laughed. "I guess you guys are starting to change, after all."

"I still can't believe you trust us," said Xaldin, shaking his head.

"Well, believe it," said Axel. "You know Sora…too polite for his own good. That's gonna get you in trouble some day, buddy. And me? Like I said. Takin' down the Superior is my recurring dream."

"Good," said Zexion. "Now there are eleven of us." He sighed. "So close…if only we had our ninth…"

Axel and Sora exchanged looks.

"About that…" Axel started, but he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"THE SUPERIOR!" Marluxia screamed, heading back for the corner. "We're dead!"

Sora flung open the door without even thinking. Instead of the Superior, in strolled a man with blond hair and eyes covered by sunglasses, dressed to kill and striding like a male model. He gave a wave of greeting to the Organization before turning to look directly through the fourth wall and tossing back a lock of his gorgeous hair. "That," he announced, "was for the fangirls."

"Who are you?" Zexion asked, suspicious.

"Forgot me already?" The man peered sheepishly at Zexion over his sunglasses. "Figures. I heard that after the battle for Hollow Bastion, no one even bothered to mention that I was DEAD. Oh, well. Only to be expected."

Zexion's mouth dropped open. His eyes—well, the visible one, anyway—widened to the size of golf balls. "DEMYX?"

"We're all present and accounted for," said Axel.

"Actually," the handsome man corrected, "you can call me Myed."

Luxord passed clean out again.

"…and that's how I got my heart back," Myed finished. He had been through a lot since he was last seen by the Organization…a powerful witch of the galaxies had brought him out of the darkness, and an equally powerful witch of the sea (one known in most circles as Ursula) had given him his heart back. She intended to trick him out of his control over water, but he had defeated her instead.

"You…lucky…little…" Xigbar growled.

"Twerp," Saïx finished, before Xigbar could insert a more profane name.

"No time for jealousy!" Zexion chided. "This is good. Very good. Myed…I take it you're devoted to the cause?"

"Oh yeah," said Myed. "After what Xemnas did to me? The teasing? The put-downs? The affirmation of my ineptitude? The times he made me CRY?"

"Everything made you cry," Vexen muttered.

"Hey!" said Sora. "Show him some respect!"

"Oh, I get it…" Vexen joked. "He still cries now, and you're trying to prevent that from happening."

Axel gave Vexen a not-very-playful slap on the back of the head.

"So what ended up happening to you?" Xaldin asked.

"I live on the Destiny Islands with Axel and Sora now," Myed explained.

"Hah!" said the now-conscious Luxord. "We all should have known! The three of them were always going to end up in the same place!"

"The infamous trio," murmured Larxene.

"Kind of a quintet now," said Axel, "but we didn't bring along Riku or Kairi 'cause this isn't really their crowd…conflict of interest, you know?"

"This is very good," said Zexion. "It is almost like it used to be…back when we were brothers and sister…before we fell into arguments and cruelty, before our Superior's sourness spoiled us all. I swear, he ruined all of our lives, all twelve of them…I shall stop at nothing to end his reign."

"I'm behind you," said Marluxia, standing next to Zexion, "one hundred percent." With one black-clad hand, he gently stroked Zexion's cheek.

"What the heck?" said Axel, before covering his eyes and yelling, "PDA! PDA!"

"Yes," Zexion growled, "Marluxia and I care for each other. I suppose this comes as a surprise. But…if I may address the audience?" Zexion turned. "I know what you're all thinking…but this isn't going to be like one of those smutty stories you all read about us being paired off and doing unmentionable things with each other. This is no casual fling. I care greatly for Marluxia, and I would do anything to ensure he comes to no harm…"

"As I would for Zexion," added Marluxia.

"Um, guys?" Myed interrupted. "The fourth wall's over there."

Zexion and Marluxia did a 180, embarrassed. "Erm, as I was saying," said Zexion, "this is a REAL relationship. An EQUAL one. NOT the kind you usually see in fan fictions."

"You tell 'em," said Marluxia, gripping Zexion's hand.

"Awwww," said Sora and Myed.

"Saps with hearts," Larxene huffed.

"So, Axel," Xigbar whispered, nudging Axel's shoulder. "Now that the two of them are official, ready to make a little confession of your feelings for Larx—"

"Shut up." Axel reached out to snap the band of Xigbar's eyepatch.

"Did I hear my name?" Larxene turned toward Xigbar.

"NO," said Axel. That time he actually succeeded in snapping the patch.

"OW!" Xigbar whined. "Zexioooooon, he hurt me!"

"He started it!"

"Axel! Xigbar! ENOUGH!" Zexion roared, reminding everyone of the true power concealed within the essence of the quiet reader. "Back to the matter at hand!"

"Can I say something?" Sora asked. "Well, all Xemnas ever wanted was a heart, right? That's why he kept destroying worlds! So maybe if we found a way to give him a heart, he'd stop, and set you all free!"

Zexion turned toward the wall. "It's not that simple, Sora. It was never about the hearts. We all thought it was…but all the Superior really wanted was power. All he wants is to rule the worlds as he rules us. And I know this for a reason. It's because he STILL won't let us go, not even now."

"What do you mean?" Sora asked. "What's different now?"

Zexion turned back to Sora, fixing one melancholy eye upon him. "Our Superior is not Xemnas," he announced. "Xemnas has found his heart, and become twice as powerful as you have ever seen him before taking back over us. The man we are against is now known as…Xehanort."


	2. Friends in Need

2

2: Friends in Need

"Okay…" said Sora, "this puts a new spin on things."

"Indeed," growled Vexen. "The new Xehanort is a fusion of the Heartless you fought at the End of the World and the Nobody you fought in the World That Never Was."

"No sweat, right?" said Sora. "I've beaten them both before…"

"SEPARATELY," said Marluxia.

"The two of them together? Near unstoppable," Luxord added.

"Well…okay…" Sora was determined not to give up his confidence. "We have an army of twelve! That should be enough to take him down!"

"Xemnas could've taken all of us at once but you," said Zexion.

"Besides," Larxene pointed out, "are you sure that we have TWELVE members capable of fighting?" She eyed Myed suspiciously.

"Hey!" Myed whined. "I took down Ursula the sea witch all by myself!"

"Wait a minute…" Sora thought about it. "So you mean to say that Xehanort is going after all the worlds?"

"Pretty much," said the nine who had begun the gathering.

"And if he ends up defeating us all?"

"It's on to the rest of the multiverse," Xaldin said somberly.

"But that's terrible!"

"No kiddin'," said Axel.

"If the beings of all the other worlds knew about this," Sora mused, "they'd want to stand up against him too. I could rally a bunch of allies for us! I have friends all over the multiverse!"

"Good luck," Lexaeus scoffed. "We aren't exactly a popular group to stand by."

"I'm sure they'll join us," said Sora, "as soon as they hear what Xehanort is up to!"

The others all looked up, down, and to the side, trying not to make Sora feel bad by doubting him.

"I'll start with the Islands!" Sora said excitedly. "Come on. You know at least RIKU will want to be in on this."

Again, eyes shifted everywhere but directly on Sora.

"Well," Sora said, "I'm gonna give it a try. Come on, Axel, Myed. We're going back to the islands."

"Whee!" Myed rushed for the door.

"Not so fast." Axel grabbed the back of Myed's shirt. "You got to ride it here. I get to ride it BACK."

"Get to ride…what?" Zexion asked, unsure if he really wanted to know.

"Our hang glider," the trio responded as one.

"You…you built a hang glider?"

"SORA and RIKU and I built a hang glider," Axel corrected.

"Okay," Myed gave in. "You get the hang glider. Just so you know, Wavewaker rides like a dream."

"We're not calling it that!" Sora and Axel yelled.

"You're just jealous because I won the race," said Myed, "meaning I got to name it."

"You didn't WORK on it," Sora chided.

"Yeah? Well, I still won the race!"

"Hardly fair," said Axel. "You've had too much practice running away from scary stuff."

The three walked out of the room arguing.

"You think they'll ever stop?" Larxene wondered.

"Not till they get back to the island," Vexen answered.

There was nothing left for Zexion to do but clear his throat and announce, "Meeting adjourned."

* * *

"Organization XIII," Riku said in disbelief.

"Yeah!" Sora, Axel, and Myed confirmed.

"Organization XIII," Riku repeated. "You want me to come and help them. The guys who ruined my life…with the obvious exceptions of Axel and Myed."

"Don't think of it so much as helping the Organization," said Sora. "Think of it as taking down Xehanort! You know, Xehanort? The guy who REALLY ruined your life to begin with?"

Riku answered by saying, "Zexion tried to kill me. Multiple times."

"I'm taking that as a no, Sora," said Axel.

Sora looked pleadingly at his other best friend. "Kairi?"

"I don't know…" was all Kairi said.

"All I'm saying," Riku scoffed, "is it's gonna take one HECK of an apology to get me to work with them."

Kairi still showed confusion.

Sora sighed. Getting his friends to stand against Xehanort would be harder than he thought…

* * *

And it would only increase in difficulty.

"You do remember that the Organization stole the Olympus Stone from my father, right?" Hercules said when Sora visited the world of the Olympus Coliseum. "When I catch up with the little thief that did that…"

"Meep." Myed slowly backed away.

* * *

"Tarzan…" Tarzan said as Sora talked with him in the Deep Jungle. "Tarzan not strong enough to fight so powerful."

"But you won't be fighting alone!" Sora argued.

"Between the worlds…" Tarzan muttered, "not Tarzan's place."

That was his final word on the subject.

* * *

"I can't leave the ocean, Sora," said Ariel.

"Donald can use his magic to change you into a human!" Sora explained.

"But what about Eric? What if I go into battle and I never come out? What happens to Eric?"

"Uhhhh…"

* * *

"Xehanort? Back?" Jack Skellington looked scared for a moment, but then burst into laughter. "Impossible! You made sure he was dead! But that gave me a good scare, though! Are you sure you don't want to work here full time?"

* * *

"What are we even doing in the Hundred Acre Wood?" Axel asked.

"We're here to get help from…" Sora suddenly realized what horrible things would come of bringing his fuzzy friends into such a cosmic battle. "Never mind."

* * *

Peter Pan, as usual, was just stubborn and selfish.

* * *

"But the man in black with the eye patch nearly destroyed China," Mulan argued, her brow set.

"He's changed," Sora tried. "They all have."

"I'm afraid I don't believe you, Sora."

* * *

"Sure, I'll join you fellows!" Jack Sparrow said enthusiastically. "Just let me get a few things off me ship…"

Sparrow rushed onto the deck of the Black Pearl.

"Great!" said Sora. "We've finally got someone!"

"Um, Sora?" said Myed, pointing at the Black Pearl, which was rapidly sailing out to sea.

Sora whipped around. "JACK!" he cried. "Well, now I REALLY know who not to trust around here…"

* * *

"I would, Sora," said Simba. "You know I would. But the rest of your friends are humans. Humans and our pride have never gotten along."

"I could talk to them for you…" Sora tried.

"Yeah," Axel put in, "because the last time you tried to talk to your friends, it worked out SOOOO well." He reached up with his hind foot to scratch his red and spiky mane.

* * *

"Sora? Kind of stuck inside a computer here," said Tron.

"Right," said Sora. "Never mind."

* * *

"No," said Leon.

"But—"

"No."

* * *

"Not after they let Jafar loose!" Aladdin growled.

"Technically, that wasn't our fault," said Axel. "That merchant guy didn't really HAVE to take our advice."

Iago listened in on the whole conversation. No one noticed him flying away.

* * *

"Huh…huh…" Iago panted. Flying across light-years was no easy task. He finally arrived at the fortress in the Forbidden Mountains. He entered through a window to find Maleficent.

"Maleficent!" he cried. "MALEFICENT!"

"There is no need to shout," the witch calmly assured him.

"Maleficent…I heard…from Sora…Xehanort…back…gonna take over the multiverse…"

"Hmmm," said Maleficent. "Such interesting information. One would consider this an adequate reason to gather all of the old allies in villainy and prevent him from taking over the domain that is so rightfully ours. And yet, one must wonder…why would a traitor to our group decide to come back and present such vital information? Perhaps as a trap, to lure us into a state of falsehood?"

"NO!" Iago screamed. "I…I…I'm just lookin' out for your welfare, that's all! Aren't we friends?"

"Friends? HA!" Maleficent scoffed. "You really have been around the boy too long. He has clouded your senses. And knowing this, it is all the more reason to punish you."

"Punish? WHAT? NO!"

The last thing Iago saw was Maleficent raising her staff…

And then all went dark.

* * *

"Trust me, guys," said Sora as the gummi ship neared its last stop. "I KNOW these guys will help us out."

"They better," said Axel. "I'm sick of traipsing all over this stinkin' multiverse for nothing."

"I have faith," Myed said boredly, his routine response every time Sora said something of the sort.

* * *

"So, will you help us out?" Sora asked, a pleading look in his eye. Myed tried to help out by adding a puppy dog pout.

Donald looked at Goofy, who looked at Mickey, who looked back at Goofy. Goofy then looked at Donald.

All three said, "Sure!"

"WHAT?" Axel cried. "Somebody actually agreed?"

"Gawrsh, Sora," said Goofy, "we've been with ya through everything else. If you believe in it, we'll stick by ya!"

"That's what friends do!" Donald affirmed, looking like he would zap anyone who disagreed with a lightning spell.

"I trust ya, Sora," said Mickey. "Besides, I don't want to take any chances. Xehanort is a powerful man…"

"Great!" Sora beamed.

"We'll even hitch a ride with ya back to the islands!" said Goofy.

"We can set up a base there," Donald added.

"You know," said Mickey, "I've known Braig, Dilan, Even, Aeleus, and Ienzo as long as I've known Ansem the Wise." They all were momentarily silent in Ansem's memory. Mickey continued, "They didn't seem as bad as they turned out, just a little easily influenced. I wouldn't be surprised if Xehanort roped them into the whole thing, and now they want to break free."

"Well, then," said Sora, "what are we waiting for? Let's get on the gummi!"

* * *

"I can't believe you got people to actually join your stupid mission," Riku scoffed.

Kairi's mind, however, was made up. "If Mickey agrees with it…I agree with it."

"Kairi!" Riku shouted. "This is the Organization we're talking about here! You can't trust them!"

"You would have said the same thing about Axel and MyMy," said Kairi, using her pet name for her newest friend.

"Yeah, well, Axel kinda helped save your life, remember?"

"After he endangered it in the first place. And I've forgiven him."

"And Myed…I wouldn't have expected a wimp like THAT to have been part of the Organization unless Sora had told me."

Axel fixed Myed with a firm gaze. "Do. Not. Cry. He said 'wimp' without thinking."

"I was NOT gonna cry," Myed growled. "I was gonna get ticked, that's all."

"Well," said Sora, "we better come up with sleeping arrangements. My mom said one being can stay at my place…any volunteers?"

Mickey, Donald, and Goofy played rock-paper-scissors for it, and Goofy won with a "Hyuck."

"I'll take the duck," Axel sighed.

"Be prepared to hear the arguing from all the way across the mainland," Kairi whispered to Myed.

"Mickey can stay with me," said Riku.

"Maybe tomorrow we can talk to the others again," said Mickey. "They might not've listened to you, Sora, but they'll listen to me."

"Good point," said Sora. "Hey! Wait a minute! Are you saying people don't listen to me?"

"Not exactly…"

"YES," said Riku, Axel, and Donald.

"People don't listen to me either," said Myed.

"I listen to you," said Kairi, fighting off a blush.

"Well, it's settled," said Mickey. "Tomorrow morning, it's back to the mission."

* * *

By midnight, Axel strolled along the beach alone. He and Donald had gotten into an argument not ten seconds after they had reached Axel's house…apparently, Donald thought that sleeping with candles on all night was a "fire hazard." Axel didn't know the meaning of the term, and so a tiff ensued.

In order to calm down, Axel left to soothe his nerves in the middle of the night. He had gone out to the island to watch the rising moon.

"Good evening, Axel."

Axel whirled around, showing fear for the first time in his life. Behind him stood the last man he wanted to see…Xehanort.

"I hear that the Organization is rallying against me," Xehanort said. "Oddly enough, this occurred around the same time that I learned YOU were alive."

"Whoa, whoa!" Axel countered. "Are you saying I'm behind the mutiny? 'Cause I'm not."

"Well, if you're not," said Xehanort, "who is?"

"Ummm…" Axel realized where his loyalties lay. "You caught me. It's me. The others wouldn't listen to me anyway, so I tried to…um…take you on myself?"

"How amusing," said Xehanort. "Why do I get the feeling you are lying to protect someone?"

"I don't protect people," Axel huffed.

"Like you didn't try to protect Roxas," Xehanort countered.

Axel wished Xehanort would just leave.

Xehanort, however, had other ideas. "Who is in charge of the conspiracy against me?" Xehanort asked, before holding out his hand and saying, "Veritas."

"The guy in charge is…whoa! Hey! Wait! How did you do that? I almost said the name of the guy! Was that…was that a truth spell?"

"Indeed it was."

"Wait. You don't know how to do truth spells."

"My heartless didn't. Neither did Xemnas. But I am whole now, Axel. Veritara!"

"It's Z-Z-Z-NO!" Axel shook his head. "You won't get it out of me! I'll die first!"

"As you wish." Xehanort flicked his wrist. "Wingardium Leviosara."

Axel rose up into the air, out over the ocean…

"What? You're…you're really gonna kill me?" Axel gulped. As a fire elemental, immersion in water would mean first the extinguishing of his fire essence, then a slow death…

"Would you put it past me?"

"I'm not surprised at all, really," Axel sighed.

"Speak now, or die."

"I pick death," said Axel. "Already happened to me once. How bad can it be the second time?"

"As you wish," said Xehanort. "But first…VERITAGA!"

Axel couldn't control his throat that time. The last word he screamed unintentionally as he plunged toward the depths was "ZEXION!"

***************************************************************** help me ************************************************************************************************ "Cease the dance, and return." ******************

Axel found himself lying on the moonlit beach of the island. He no longer felt the burning of the water on his skin.

"What…what happened?" he asked himself.

"A real close call," came the answer.

Axel sat up, surprised. He twisted round to see who was standing beside him. "Myed?"

"That's my name. Don't wear it out."

"Myed…did you just save me?"

"Yeah. I dove in the water after you and pulled you to the surface. Then I called the water out of your essence and sent it back to the sea."

Axel thought over the words he had heard while drowning in darkness. "Cease the dance, and return"…they had been said in Myed's voice!

"How did you know I was out here?" Axel asked.

"It was just kind of a feeling," said Myed, "that one of my friends was in trouble."

"And you didn't want me to die?"

"Well, DUH."

Axel stood up. "Come here, you."

"What are you…"

Axel pulled Myed into a bear hug. "I underestimated you," he told his long-underappreciated friend.

"Meh. Everyone does."

Axel let Myed out of the hug. "Thanks."

"Anytime, Axel!"

* * *

Zexion was also cooling his nerves in the moonlight…however, he chose to do it beneath the glow of the ruined Kingdom Hearts, in the streets of the World That Never Was.

"Good evening, Zexion," a voice greeted.

Zexion turned to face Xehanort. "Good evening, Master."

"Master? Are you really fit to call me that?" Xehanort smiled. "The word is that you are out to betray me."

"Lies, Master."

"Lies…the sort of lies that come out of a man put under the truth spell?"

"You can't do a…"

"Are you plotting against me, Zexion? VERITAGA!"

"Yes." Zexion's hands flew to his mouth.

"Good to know." Xehanort vanished.

Zexion was confused. "He didn't want to punish me?"

What he didn't know…was that the punishment was coming.

He tried to take a step forward, but his foot was restrained, and his ankle felt a sharp cutting pain. Zexion looked down to see that a black nettle vine had emerged from a crack in the street and wrapped itself about his ankle.

A second vine burst up from the asphalt and curled about his other ankle as the first vine crawled up his leg…

"What? No! NO!"

Before Zexion knew it, he was encased in a ball of thorny vines. All he could see was the dark vegetation…the world around him had disappeared…then the final vine wrapped itself about his neck and prepared to strangle him.

Then, a flash of pink cut in front of Zexion's eyes…the blade of a scythe.

Again and again, the scythe carved a hemisphere out of the vine ball until Zexion could see out…and his vision met the bright, beautiful Marluxia.

"Zexion!" Marluxia called out in fear of loss.

Zexion tried to answer, but the vine around his neck prevented him…black spots were beginning to obscure his sight of Marluxia's face…

Marluxia knew what he had to do. It would be the hardest cut he ever made with his scythe…he could only hope to live up to his title of "Graceful Assassin." One slip, and he could end up killing his love…

Marluxia gently eased the tip of the blade between the strangling vines and Zexion's neck. When he was sure that he had only vine in the curve of the scythe and no skin, he made the cut…

Zexion winced and screamed.

Marluxia gasped. He had drawn blood! Or, rather, the dark essence that replaced blood in the veins of every Nobody…he watched it trickle down Zexion's neck.

"Don't worry," Zexion coughed. "It's only a skin wound. I'm fine."

Marluxia repeated the procedure on Zexion's right wrist, which was also covered in vines. This time, he drew no dark essence. Zexion then used his free hand to rip the vines from his left wrist.

"Get out of there!" Marluxia called.

"I can't," Zexion whimpered. "The vines have got my waist and ankles…"

"Hold out your arms," Marluxia commanded. Once Zexion had done so, he tightly gripped the smaller man around the chest, and heaved him forward. The vines around Zexion's waist and ankles snapped, and he was ripped free of the ball of vines.

Xehanort portalled into the nearby street. "So you have outwitted me," he said, grinning. "Very spectacular."

Zexion, scared beyond belief, stood as close as he could to Marluxia. Marluxia wrapped his left arm around Zexion protectively as he brandished his scythe with his right.

"I hate you," Marluxia said, swinging the scythe.

Xehanort quickly dodged the blade with the grace of a ballerina. "Why do you hate me so?"

"Because," Marluxia seethed, "you can take a strong man…a leader, a fighter, and a thinker…and turn him into a scared mess like THIS!" He nodded toward the shivering Zexion. "This isn't the way any being was meant to cower, and you know it! Now I will give my all to stand between you and him. You won't touch him, you monster."

"Monster?" Xehanort chuckled. "The pot calls the kettle black. Do you not remember using your blade against innocents? Plotting behind the backs of your friends to overthrow them? Taking a youth like Naminé, whose whole entity was completely pure of heart, and abusing her? And let us not forget…there was a reason you fell from grace and became nothing in the first place. Half of you…your true half…gave itself over to darkness."

"And YOU show no remorse for YOUR half going into darkness?"

"I realize that darkness does not make me evil…and my way is the right. My rule is the rule that should encompass all."

Zexion's anger built up enough that he could throw off Marluxia's arm. He stood directly in front of Xehanort, looking up into his red eyes. "No," he said. "Your rule is the rule of one, and your way is the way of greed! What you have yet to realize is that your path is lonely…and though, even with your heart, you can not feel loneliness, it will come back to haunt you when we rise and overthrow you. For as you have seen tonight, you can attack us and defeat us when we are alone, but together, with each other's help, we will find a way to outwit you each time!"

Xehanort laughed. "Now you sound like the young Key of Destiny!" He turned to face a dark portal. "However…I shall keep that in mind." He left the area.

Zexion turned back to face Marluxia, who couldn't take his eyes off Zexion's neck. Zexion wondered what Marluxia was staring at until he put his hand up to his neck, feeling the place where the scythe had cut him.

"I'm FINE," he said sternly.

"I…I can't believe…I never wanted to hurt you," Marluxia said softly.

"It was a good thing you did," Zexion said with a smile. "It caused us to realize something."

"What?"

"If you care that much about hurting me…then you're not the monster Xehanort called you. Not anymore."

The two ended up in a tender embrace…not like the casual embrace of two friends such as Axel and Myed, but a more delicate affair, where each being attempted to fully live out the short moment he had with the other in his arms…

Xigbar portalled in. "Hey, guys!" he called out. "I saw the vines and the portals from all the way…"

He stopped in shock. "OH MY GODS!" he screamed, then portalled away.

"Was he that disgusted by our relationship?" Marluxia asked, stepping away from Zexion.

Zexion planted his face in his palm. "No…" he growled. "It's not that."

* * *

Xigbar portalled over to the Destiny Islands, where Myed and Axel sat on the beach cracking jokes.

"You'll never believe what I saw!" said Xigbar. "Marluxia was HUGGING Zexion!"

"And Zexion LET him?" Axel said in awe.

"Wasn't protesting in the least!"

"But Zexion hates hugs!" Myed pointed out. "Probably more than anyone in the whole multiverse!"

"I KNOW!" Xigbar screamed in excitement. "That's why I had to come here and tell you!"

"Last time I tried to hug Zexion," said Myed, "I was just trying to cheer him up…and he punched me in the face."

"See this?" Axel rolled up his sleeve to show the others a ring-shaped scar. "When I found out hugs ticked him off, I tried to give him one just to get his goat. The little twerp BIT me. He has sharp teeth!"

"And let's not forget that he scratches," added Xigbar. "He has longer nails than you'd expect…which sometimes end up in the wrong place…" Xigbar absentmindedly fingered his eyepatch, remembering the one time he'd tried to lift Zexion's spirits with a hug.

"I don't think I believe you," said Axel.

"You should've gotten pictures," added Myed.

"I'm gonna go tell the rest of the Organization now," said Xigbar.

"Oh, and while you're doing that…" Axel spoke up. "Deliver another message to them. The game is up. Xehanort knows what we're doing. We're all kinda fired from the Organization, I'll wager…I'd advise going into hiding."

* * *

Riku slowly paddled his boat into the mooring station at the island the next morning while the sun was high in the brilliantly azure sky.

Suddenly, he was struck by an incredible sight. A large crate stood in the middle of the beach…about double the size of the crates usually found on the island…and the words "To Riku" were scrawled on the side in black paint.

Riku approached the crate and gingerly pried off the top to see what was inside.

"NO WAY!" he screamed. "Octarine licorice! They stopped making this on the islands years ago! I LOVE this!"

He popped a piece of licorice into his mouth.

"Read the card," came a steely voice from behind him. He knew that voice, and held great contempt for it. Riku slowly turned to face Zexion.

"I said, read the card," Zexion insisted.

Riku found a piece of paper taped to the side of the crate. He read, scribbled in what could only be called "artist's handwriting", "Riku—consider this our apology. –Zexion." Beneath that, in flowing script, the name "Lexaeus" was also signed.

"When I had control of your memories," Zexion explained, "I saw that you loved this candy as a child."

Riku plucked a strand of licorice from the crate and offered it to Zexion, who put it in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. There was silence as the two gnawed on their sweets, Riku with considerably more gusto.

"I guess I can forgive you," said Riku, "and pass my forgiveness on to Lexaeus. I guess this is the heck of an apology I was waiting for."

"Thanks."

"And I'll help you take down Xehanort."

"Thank you again."

"You know…" Riku seemed hesitant. "You could stay here, you know. Since you're going to be leaving Xehanort's rule, and that kinda leaves you homeless. Axel and Myed seem to like it here."

"I'll consider it," said Zexion.

At that moment, Tidus and Wakka came by, dueling furiously with their swords. "You're going down, Tidus!"

"Wakka! Do you have to hit me so…OW! That's it! You're going down!"

Selphie skipped across the beach, singing, "La la-la la laaa…"

"WAAAAAAAK!" Donald screamed at Mickey for doing something or other that had angered him…it was hard to guess what, as most anything angered Donald.

"CANNONBALL CONTEST!" Sora screamed, as he, Kairi, and Goofy leapt off the edge of the dock and produced spectacular splashes.

"MYYYYYYEEEEEEED!" Axel screamed. "THAT ISN'T FUNNY! PUT THE SUPER SOAKER DOWN NOW!"

"Oooh, fear the water! Scary water!" Myed teased, chasing Axel by with a large and sloshing water gun.

Zexion winced from all the noise, remembering his vow to lock himself away somewhere quiet. "On second thought…I'm afraid I must decline."

"Understood," said Riku. "Sometimes, even I wish I was away from all this chaos…" He looked wistfully out towards the ocean. "But in the end, I realize that my place in the multiverse is here, WHIPPING YOU ALL AT A CANNONBALL CONTEST, YOU LOSERS!" he screamed, jumping into the water after his friends.


	3. The NeoOrganization

3

3: The Neo-Organization

"Maleficent."

Maleficent looked Xehanort up and down, sensing his new magical abilities and sizing them up.

"I have a very interesting proposition for you," Xehanort offered.

"You seem to have stolen a fortress from me," Maleficent growled, "one which I had so rightly claimed after your downfall."

"Take this offer, and you will once more have a place in the Castle That Never Was."

"I don't want a place. I want ownership."

"Consider the sheer volume of the multiverse, Maleficent. Come with me and my fellows, and a portion of it…a very, very large portion…will in fact be under your ownership."

Maleficent grinned. "Now I am listening."

* * *

"AAAAHHHH! IT BURNS!"

Axel responded to Myed's pained screams by turning his radio up louder. All Axel had wanted to do was lie on the beach and work on his tan while listening to some of his favorite music…but Myed had other ideas.

"WHAT IS THIS HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE NOISE?" Myed screeched, clutching his ears.

"This is called RAP," said Axel. "Get used to it."

"Change it. Now."

"No."

"I saved your life…you owe me!"

"I'll pay you back in a different way. Now I came out here to listen to my music, I want to listen to my music, and you are not changing my music."

The two were interrupted by the appearance of a portal, from which came Xaldin.

Axel leapt up to face him.

"Axel," said Xaldin, "the rest of the Organization has found a place to hide. We thought we would show you, Myed, and Sora…where is Sora now?"

"Out gathering allies," said Axel.

"Fair enough. We shall show him later. Come with me."

The radio suddenly blared "My Sharona," causing Axel to wince.

"What…is…THAT?"

"This is called MUSIC," said Demyx, hand still on the radio dial.

"I will get you back for that," Axel threatened.

"Hey! You still owe me your life!"

Xaldin rolled his eyes at the juvenility.

* * *

"Long story short," said Mickey, "that's why we're out to save the multiverse!"

"I see," said Jack Sparrow. "So…why does this involve the dog and the duck thing monkeying around with my ship?"

"Well," said Sora, "we're picking up a few more friends on the way back…and they won't all fit in OUR ship…so we're fixing up the Black Pearl with some gummis so it can fly between the worlds!"

A giant KABOOM sounded from down below, accompanied by Goofy's trademark "EEEEYAAAAHH-HOO-HOO-HOOEEEEEE!"

Sora started forward as if to save them from some unknown danger, but Mickey held up a hand to stop him. "He's fine," the mouse assured him. "This happens back at Disney Castle all the time."

"Hey, you!" Sparrow yelled down to the innards of the Pearl. "You be careful with my ship!"

"Sorry!" Goofy yelled back. There was then a great CLANG, as though Goofy had dropped a wrench somewhere…most likely on Donald's foot, as the next sound to come was a "WAAAHAAHAAAHAAAAAKKKKK!" of anger.

Sora smiled. "Heh heh…just a few more minutes, and we'll be able to take off!"

"Lord help me…" Sparrow mumbled, retreating to a cabin.

* * *

"Nice space," said Axel, looking around the room the Organization had chosen.

"It would be nicer," Luxord pointed out, "if there was more than one couch…or if certain people would stop hogging it, at least…"

"You're just jealous," said Larxene, stretching out her feet as she sat next to Vexen on the sole couch.

"Larxene," said Xaldin, "I believe I was sitting there before I left…"

"Was your name on it?" Larxene shot back.

The twelve enjoyed small talk and minor arguments for a while before Xigbar suggested a game of "What's the most awkward moment you've ever had while in the Organization?"

"Easy," said Axel. "The day my twin brother showed up. Didn't even remember I had a brother until he popped up. Him and his cocky attitude…all 'Mom asked me to check up on you' and 'Mom likes me better' and 'My job is cooler than yours'….I swear, if Reno ever dares set foot within fifty feet of me again, FIRE WILL FLY."

"Okaaaaay…" Xigbar grimaced.

"My most awkward moment…" Myed said quietly. "The day I was walking past that bike rack in the street and my cloak got caught on the bike handle and I tripped and fell on my face."

"And I wasn't there to see it?" said Axel.

"Are you sure it wasn't the time you had too much caffeine?" said Zexion. "You and Axel were in the library, and Axel told a joke, and you fell on the floor laughing…you wouldn't get up for fifteen minutes. Fifteen. Whole. Minutes. It was rather disturbing, Myed. Then, after Axel left, you finally noticed he was gone and started crying."

"How do you know that?" snapped Axel. "You weren't there!"

"I was there," said Zexion. "You just never saw me because I was in the back corner reading silently." He grinned mischievously.

"You are too good at that," Axel grumbled. "Don't ever try to sneak up on somebody…you might give 'em a heart attack. Presuming they have a heart, anyway."

Everyone looked at Myed, who gulped.

"Speaking of Axel and Myed," said Vexen, "my most awkward moment was when I walked in on them slow dancing. What was that, the tango? The waltz?"

"I told you there was a good explanation for that!" Axel growled.

"Oh really? You never told me what it was."

"Well," said Myed, "you see…"

"Myed," Axel warned.

"He didn't know how to dance, and he wanted lessons, and since I'm the only one of us who has any skill whatsoever in the art of the dance, I had to teach him various slow dances."

Axel let out a sigh of relief.

"And why did Axel want dancing lessons in the first place?" Xaldin asked, shooting Larxene another dirty look because of the couch incident.

"In case he ever had the chance to go out dancing with Lar—"

Axel clamped his hand firmly over Myed's mouth.

Larxene's eyes narrowed to slits. "Was he about to say…"

"No," said Axel sternly.

"Right." Larxene didn't look convinced.

Saïx, who had been quiet thus far, piped up unexpectedly. "I have one."

"Shoot," said Xigbar, aware that whenever he uttered that phrase it became an instant pun.

"Well, one day I walked past the Superior's room, and I saw him…" Saïx broke off to giggle lightly.

"Saw him what? Don't leave us hangin'!" Marluxia coaxed.

"He was kissing…" Saïx seemed unable to finish.

"WHO? Kissing WHO?" Larxene leaned forward, excited to hear what came next.

"…his mirror."

After a two second pause, the Organization erupted into uncontrollable laughter.

"I always knew…he was a narcissist…" Larxene wheezed between laughs, "but…I never knew…it was THAT…BAD…"

"Why…" Axel gasped, "am I not…surprised?"

This made them all laugh harder.

After a while, an awkward silence settled.

"I never thought I would say this," said Xaldin, "but I missed the days when we could actually stand each other."

"XALDIN SAID SOMETHING SENTIMENTAL!" Axel crowed.

"IT'S THE FIRST SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE!" Myed added.

"Perhaps we truly are changing…" Zexion mused.

"Yeah," Axel added. "Maybe you all weren't so bad."

"What, for all of your 'Roxas, you were the only one I ever liked' talk?" Myed challenged.

"Hey! How did you know about that?"

"The night Roxas left?"

"Yeah. You were supposed to meet us."

"I was a bit late, but when I got there, I overheard you two talking about how much you'd miss each other and the rest of the Organization was just jerks."

Axel suddenly did something very surprising. He adopted a facial expression…of regret and sympathy.

"Myed," said Axel, "if you're thinking…we didn't mean you. Er, we didn't mean Demyx."

"Really?"

"Well…okay, we did mean you. But when you didn't show up, we thought you were ratting Roxas out to the Superior. I…I'm sorry. I didn't know. Roxas said he would've missed you if you hadn't turned on him…we didn't know you were just late. I guess you must've showed up after he said that. I'm really sorry, Myed."

Myed smiled. "So you really didn't hate me?"

"Hate's a strong word."

"Thanks."

"Gosh, why has everyone gone SAPPY?" Larxene complained.

Vexen shot a glance at Saïx in the corner. "Say, Saïx, you all right?"

"Yes. Why?"

"It's just that you haven't said anything before or since that mirror story…you've been quieter than Lexaeus. And he's supposed to be the Silent Hero."

"It's nothing."

But Saïx's mind was churning with the thoughts he had before he was under Xemnas' control…the things he used to think about before his focus changed to getting his heart back…there was someone from his past who had dealt him a great wrong, and revenge flickered in the remnants of his soul. Who was it? He couldn't remember. If he ever did get his heart back, he would remember, and the revenge would blaze within him…and revenge he would get…but he had no heart, no memory. It would drive him insane, he thought, unless he had a way to come up with the name…

The gate outside opened, and the curtain door opened.

"Hey!" said a teenage boy. "What are you doing in our usual spot?"

"Wait a second," said a girl, one of two companions who stood behind the angry boy. "Isn't that Axel?"

Axel stood, followed by Myed. "Olette! Hayner! Pence!" they called in greeting.

"So this is your spot?" Zexion asked.

"Usually," said Hayner. "That's why we call it the usual spot."

"I don't get it," said Vexen. "Even the three of them still have to figure out a way to share the couch."

"These people are with us," said Axel. "They're just trying to hide for a while because there's a madman after us…it's a long story."

"A madman after you?" Olette asked.

"Like I said, long story."

"Wait…" Hayner and his friends had visited the Destiny Islands multiple times; thus, they were well acquainted with Axel and Myed. "If there's somebody after you, what about Sora?"

"After him too," Myed moaned.

"WHAT?" Hayner screamed. "Thanks a lot for telling us, Sora!" he yelled to the ceiling.

"You'd think he would at least have written us," Olette growled.

"I think this warrants a visit to the islands," said Pence. "He obviously needs our help."

"He obviously doesn't WANT our help," Hayner growled.

"Well, let's at least go see what's up," said Olette.

The three turned to make their way to the nearest gummi ship they could find. Hayner called over his shoulder on the way out, "You can stay in the hangout, but don't touch my darts!"

"I should get going," said Myed. "Gotta meet KaiKai so we can work on our project."

"This nickname thing you and Kairi have going on with each other is starting to get sick and wrong," said Axel. His comment went unnoticed, however, for Myed was already gone.

* * *

Belowdecks, in the dining room of the Black Pearl, heroes from many different worlds were experiencing an awkward silence.

Sora went down to check on them. "Hey," he said, "why so quiet? Maybe you all want to mingle or something."

He left to check on Donald, Goofy, and Mickey, who were in charge of piloting the ship.

"Okay, then," Mulan muttered. "I suppose I'll go first." She walked over to Hercules. "My name's Mulan."

"I'm Hercules. So what's your story?"

"I assisted with a war back in my home world, and managed to secure the victory."

"Oh, really? That's a big thing to do for a…" Hercules realized what he was about to say, then closed his mouth.

"Were you about to say a girl?" Mulan asked, frustrated.

"I'm sorry, I really am…"

Mulan stormed off in a huff.

"Well, this is going to go well," Simba sighed.

"What's this?" Jack Skellington crept up to the lion. "A talking lion! I've never seen one before! Except in Santa's toy shop…perhaps this is a giant toy…" He began rifling through Simba's mane, looking for a wind-up key.

"Hey! HEY!" Simba protested. "You're messing up my mane!"

The Prince formerly known as the Beast stared out the window of the ship, already missing his precious Belle.

"So I hear you've been transformed from a different shape too," said Ariel, who had given in to Donald's magic and let herself become a human.

"Please," said the Prince, "I don't want to talk about it." All of his thoughts were focused on his faraway love.

"Fine," said Ariel, "if you're going to be rude."

Jack Sparrow smirked when he looked at Aladdin. The Arabian prince had come on board his ship wearing a spectacularly wrought gold armband from the palace in Agrabah, and Jack had thought himself so kind as to liberate Aladdin of the extra weight on his arm when he wasn't looking. Jack thought of all the goods he could buy with that one armband in his pocket…

"HEY!" he screamed, having been poked in the back with a wooden dagger. He spun around to face the wily Peter Pan. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Giving you your just desserts, Codfish!" crowed Peter. "I've taken on hundreds of pirates before!"

"Oh yeah?" Sparrow drew his sword, and the two went off in a duel. Despite his toy weapon, Peter seemed to be winning. Sparrow looked across the room to see Aladdin smirking at him. "Fine," he called out, "go ahead and laugh at my misfortune!"

Aladdin wasn't smiling because of the duel…he was smiling because unbeknownst to Jack, he had managed to transfer the armband from Jack's pocket to his own.

"ENOUGH!" Leon knocked both swords from the fighters' hands with the Gunblade.

A curious Tarzan loped over to the Gunblade to see what it was.

"Is everyone here going to be rude to us because we're women?" Ariel asked.

"We can only hope not…" Mulan sighed.

"GET OFF!" Simba yelled for the last time.

"Oh, that's shiny!" Skellington joined Tarzan in the inspection of the Gunblade.

"You guys wanna leave that alone?" Leon jerked his weapon away.

Abovedecks, Sora thanked Mickey for helping him to convince the others to join the cause.

"No problem, Sora!" said Mickey.

"I just hope they can get along…"

A large KABOOM came from belowdecks.

"I didn't do it this time!" Goofy swore.

"Oh, no…" Donald hit his head with his wing.

* * *

Kairi waited on the cove. She heard rapidly approaching footsteps, and looked up with glee. "MyMy!"

"Hey, KaiKai." Myed stood at her side. "Ready?"

"Yeah…you know, MyMy, I think I want to do it tonight."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I mean, we've practically perfected it…"

"Then we'll pull it off tonight."

* * *

"HEY, EVERYBODY!" Sora called.

The many heroes gathered on the deck of the Black Pearl.

"Look!" Sora cried. He pointed out toward the Destiny Islands. "That's where our base is! You'll all love it there. Ariel, Sparrow, it's kind of like both your worlds…"

Suddenly, Sora heard the sound of thirteen malevolent laughs…laughs that chilled him to the bone.

Thirteen people, cloaked in black, appeared on the deck of the Pearl.

"Hey! Who are you?" Donald quacked.

The first figure removed his hood. Even though Sora had never seen this particular man before, he was easy to recognize.

"Xehanort," he hissed.

"How very observant," Xehanort replied. "I see you have gathered many friends in order to face me."

"You'd never take us all down at once," Sora said, suddenly not so sure of himself as he surveyed the other hooded figures.

"Exactly," said Xehanort, "which is why I have rebuilt my Organization."

"REBUILT THE ORGANIZATION?" Mickey, Donald, and Goofy cried in unison.

"Allow me to introduce the Neo-Organization."

As each member removed his or her hood, Xehanort announced their name and title.

"Number II: Maleficent: the Mistress of All Evil."

"Number III: Sephiroth: the One Winged Angel."

"Number IV: Darth Vader: the Destructive Father."

"Number V: Christopher Carrion: the Nightmare Cultivator."

"Number VI: Ganondorf: the Divine Beast."

"Number VII: Voldemort: the Flight From Death."

"Number VIII: Saint Dane: the Shifting Traveler."

"Number IX: Aro: the Eternal Telepath."

"Number X: Sauron: the Lord of the Rings."

"Number XI: Redd Heart: the Poisonous Rose."

"Number XII: Light Yagami: the Nameless Killer."

"Number XIII: Count Olaf: the Illiterate Pyromaniac."

The heroes were frightened. These people looked ten times tougher than the original Organization.

"I'm afraid your trip ends here," said Maleficent.

All of the members of the Neo-Organization put their hands together, and with a radiant flash, they sent destruction through the ship.

* * *

"What was that?" Axel asked Riku.

"I don't know," said Riku, "but it sounded bad."

The two looked out to sea, where a cloud of smoke was visible in the distance.

"Oh, not Sora," Riku mumbled. "Please, not Sora. Nothing happened to Sora…"

A figure was visible paddling toward shore. Riku squinted, then let out a large breath. It was Sora.

Sora was soon accompanied by several others, all making a break for the shore. They all hit the beach at about the same time. "Everyone okay?" Sora called out.

A roll was taken: Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Hercules, Tarzan, Aladdin, Ariel, Skellington, Peter, the Prince, Mulan, Sparrow, Simba, and Leon were all accounted for.

"Good," said Sora.

"Ahem!" came a voice from behind him. Sora turned to see…

"Olette?"

"Yeah," said Hayner, "and me and Pence too."

"Sora," said Pence, "if you were in trouble, why didn't you come tell us?"

"I…I didn't want you to get involved! This is serious stuff! You could get hurt!"

"Yeah, right," said Hayner. "More like you forgot about us."

"Well, I won't forget about you again," said Sora. "Welcome to the team."

"That's more like it," said Hayner.

"Now we have to work out even MORE sleeping arrangements," said Riku. He sighed. "I suppose I can take Jack."

"Which one?" Axel asked.

"Oh, right. I've gotta use last initials. I'll take Jack S."

"Again: which one?"

"The undead one."

"Riku…you really have to come up with some better discernments…"

"Okay, then, I'll take Sparrow!" Riku suddenly looked at the heroes Sora had brought, then at the Twilight Town trio, then at Axel. He thought about Myed and the rest of the Organization.

"Sora," he said, "you are a magnet for weird people."

* * *

Sora lay in his bed, almost asleep. He had several guests sprawled about the house; the bedroom was solely Sora's for the time being.

A rock bounced off his window.

"Wha…?" Sora sat up and opened the window. He was nearly hit in the face by the second rock.

"Sorry!" Kairi called up from below his window.

"Kairi!" Sora yelled, not so much bothered from being jerked out of sleep than he was excited to see his beautiful friend. "What are you doing here?" He smiled widely.

"Sora," she said, "there's something I want you to hear. I've been practicing this for a long time."

She cleared her throat, and began to sing:

"When you walk away,

You don't here me say,

Please, oh baby, don't go!"

From behind a bush, Sora could hear the dulcet tones of a sitar accompanying Kairi's voice…but oh, that voice…it could outsing the sirens.

"You give me…too many things lately…

You're all I need, you smiled at me and said:

Don't get me wrong, I love you…"

Sora smiled, leaning forward so far that he almost fell out the window.

"When we are older you'll understand

It's enough

When I say so,

And maybe, some things are that simple…"

The more Kairi crooned, the more Sora fell in love with her, over and over again.

When she finished, he called, "I'll be right down!" and closed the window.

Myed came out from behind his bush. "You think he liked it?"

"I know he did," said Kairi with a smile.

Sora ran out to meet Kairi. "Thank you," he said, "so much. I loved it. In fact…Kairi…I never got the chance to tell you this, but I love you."

Kairi blushed. "I love you too, Sora."

The two stood there awkwardly for a moment, before Kairi decided to take a chance.

"You know, Sora…we've been through a lot together, and we're going to be through a lot more. I realized that when this Xehanort business began. Our destinies are going to be long and twisted, and we may not always be together."

"But I want to be together…"

"As do I. If you really feel that way…that you want our destinies to be intertwined, always…"

She rummaged through the bag she kept at her side and pulled out a paopu fruit.

"But only if you're sure," she said.

Sora placed a hand on the fruit. "I'm sure," he said.

They held the fruit up between them, each leaning forward to take a bite…

They both stopped. Two pairs of eyes were fixed on Myed, who was watching the lovers with wide eyes and the goofy grin of an overemotional person viewing a romance film.

"Erm…Myed?" Sora asked. "Could you…erm…give us a minute?"

"Oh. Sure. Sorry." Myed turned and walked away.

When they were sure he had gone, Sora and Kairi each took a bite of the paopu…

And thus their fates were aligned forever.

* * *

A/N: For more detail regarding Demyx witnessing Axel and Roxas' goodbye, refer to "Such Sweet Sorrow."


	4. Weakness

4

4: Weakness

"Yagami," Xehanort commanded, "come here a moment."

Xehanort led eighteen-year-old Light into a secluded room and shut the door.

"I have a very special assignment for you, Nameless Killer," Xehanort announced.

"And what is that, exactly?" Light produced a notebook and a pen from within his cloak. "Would you like your enemies…gone?"

"Not yet," said Xehanort. "I would rather see them suffer, which will be Carrion and Maleficent's job."

"I can cause their deaths to be long and involving suffering," Light argued.

"I have a better assignment for you, Yagami," Xehanort assured the youth. "You say your little notebook has the power to deal out heart attacks?"

"Unless I write otherwise."

"Here's what I am thinking…"

Xehanort told Yagami his plan.

Yagami was stunned. "But…that could destroy the Death Note! I've never tried anything like that before! It's too powerful to mess with, Xehanort."

"Are you disobeying my orders?"

"NO!" Light knew what THAT meant. "Of course not! I was merely stating the…I will get right on it, sir."

"Very good, Yagami."

* * *

"After you, Mademoiselle," said Lumiere, opening the door for his beloved leader Belle.

"Thank you," Belle giggled. She walked over to the dinner table.

"It is a real shame that the Master could not join us tonight," said Cogsworth, taking his place across from Belle.

"I'm sure he's all right," said Belle, "wherever he is…and Sora's probably taking good care of him."

All of a sudden, the table seemed to be swimming and quivering in front of her eyes. She leaned backward and pressed her hand to her face.

"Mademoiselle?" Cogsworth cried in concern.

"Are you all right?" Lumiere added.

"I…I'm just a little dizzy, that's all…" By then, Belle was having a hard time seeing anything in front of her.

"Take her to her chambers," Cogsworth ordered Lumiere. "She needs to rest."

* * *

"He replaced us?" Xaldin said in disbelief. "He truly replaced us?"

"All of you," Sora informed the Organization. He, Axel, and Myed had gone to the Usual Spot to break the news.

Xaldin reacted by punching a large hole in the wall. "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!"

"Whoa, whoa." Sora was confused. "I thought you were against Xehanort."

"I am," Xaldin growled.

Vexen took Sora aside. "You see, Sora," he told the boy, "Xaldin has always been a follower, and he was a close friend to Xehanort in his days as Dilan. Even when Xehanort came back and threatened our security, I doubt Xaldin ever gave up hope that the kind Xehanort who befriended him and the proud Xemnas who gave him a purpose would some day return to him. However, it seems not to be. Without Xehanort, he knows not who to follow."

"Well…he has you all…"

"Until we gain our freedom and go our separate ways."

"That's sad," said Sora, looking at the enraged Whirlwind Lancer.

Saïx also seemed to be saddened by the news, but after seeing the damage Xaldin was doing to the hideout, he refrained from doing anything similar.

"HEY!" Larxene cried. "You're ruining the wall! You're gonna be fixing that, you know!"

Zexion sighed and rubbed his temples. "She says that now, but of course we all know I'm going to end up fixing the wall in the end."

The Schemer's eyes then lit up unexpectedly. "I think," he said, "I have a plan for our first attack."

"All right!" several others cheered. "Right on! You go! Fire away!"

Once Zexion had explained the plan, however, attitudes changed.

"You're nuts. Not gonna happen! That's also known in many worlds as SUICIDE!"

"Well, I didn't say you all had to be involved," Zexion huffed. "Just a few of you for backup in case something goes wrong. Really, if it goes as planned—"

"Which it won't," Axel interjected.

"—I'll be the only one doing any hard work. Who objects to that?"

Silence.

"Does anyone want to come with me as backup in case it goes wrong?"

"Which it will," said Axel.

"I'm with you," said—of course—Marluxia.

"It actually sounds like a good plan to me," said Myed. "I'll go."

"Myed thinks it sounds like a good plan?" Axel put in. "Now I'm definitely not going along with it. Nothing could make me."

"I'll go," said Larxene.

"I'm in!" Axel cried.

The others stared.

"Erm…I mean…I couldn't just let a fair lady such as Larxene go into battle unprotected."

"YOU WANNA SAY THAT AGAIN, SEXIST PIG?" Larxene grabbed Axel's shirt front and dragged him forward so his face was inches away from her snarl.

"I mean…because you can obviously take care of yourself…um…it's not like I…wait, you thought I meant you? I meant a lady such as MARLUXIA…"

"AXEL!" Zexion and Marluxia growled in unison.

"I'm thinking I should shut up now," said Axel as Larxene let him go.

"Yeah," said Larxene. "Smart idea."

* * *

"Oh, dear!" Flora cried, zooming through the hallways of the castle. "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!"

"What is it, dear?" Merryweather stopped the fleeing fairy.

"It's Princess Aurora! She's collapsed!"

* * *

The five either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid volunteers for Zexion's plan stood, squished, in Xehanort's closet.

"When will he just show up?" Axel asked. "I am not comfortable in here. Zexion, if you had mentioned we would be hiding in a very cramped space, I would not have come. I mean, my foot's been asleep for thirty minutes because Myed has been standing on it."

"And Axel's face is waaaay too close to mine," said Larxene. "Have you ever smelled fire elemental breath up close? I can tell you right now, it REEKS."

Axel actually looked rather hurt.

Myed tried to think of ways to pass the time. "Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall…"

"NO," said the other four.

"We could finish the Most Awkward Moments game," said Marluxia. "Zexion, you never told us yours."

"I did," said Zexion. "I just never said it was my most awkward moment. It was Demyx on caffeine."

"Mine also involves Demyx, incidentally," said Marluxia, shooting a glare at Myed. "I remember one morning, I was going about my usual routine, showering, and I just happened to be singing at the same time, when Demyx portals into my BATHROOM and starts gushing about how beautiful my voice is."

"I can't let good musical talent go unrecognized!" Myed wailed.

"Try recognizing it when I have some clothes on," Marluxia shot back.

"What about your awkward moment, Larxene?" said Axel.

"I'm going to agree with those two and just say Demyx," Larxene answered.

"Hey," Myed whimpered.

"That would be a person," said Marluxia, "not a moment."

"Okay, then. My most awkward moment?...Xigbar's pickup lines." Larxene wouldn't elaborate beyond that.

Silence.

"So," said Marluxia, "I'm starting to have second thoughts…are you sure we're strong enough to take him on if your plan fails?"

"I don't know," said Zexion. "I'm just hoping he'll be enough off his guard."

"Well, whatever happens, I'm fighting alongside you all the way."

Zexion and Marluxia bumped fists in a gesture of teamwork.

"We're in this together," Zexion replied.

"Soooo…" said Myed, "I always thought that the odds were really small that we'd get a couple in the Organization, but now we've got Zex and Marly…and Axel has a thing for Larxene…"

"Shut up," said Axel.

Instead of shutting up, Myed sang softly, "Come on Larxene…"

"Oh I swear," Zexion backed him up.

"Well he means…"

"At this moment."

"You mean everything!"

Smoke was beginning to come out of Axel's ears, and Larxene just pretended she hadn't heard a word.

"Thank you, thank you!" Myed managed the best bow he could in the cramped closet. "We are Zexy's Midnight Runners, and we'll be here all week!"

"But yeah," said Axel. "At least it's not like everybody in the Organization HAS to be paired off with somebody else in the Organization…I'm pretty sure the remaining ones in the pool aren't going to pick each other. They really don't have much to work with. We're an odd number, anyway!"

"You know what would be weird?" Myed asked. "If all of us but one guy and Larxene were gay, and everyone was in love with someone else who didn't love them back, and we just had one huge love triskaidekagon?"

"Okay, Myed," said Zexion, "I think that was the weirdest thing you've ever said. Ever."

"I think THAT just became my most awkward moment," said Larxene.

"Who taught him the word 'triskaidekagon'?" Axel wondered.

"Well, excuse me for being bored," said Myed. "We've been sitting in this closet for I forget how long, and when I get bored, I tend to think of weird things! Like…what would happen if Riku married Rikku? We'd only have to call 'Riku!' and they'd both come running."

"Myed," Marluxia begged, "please stop being bored."

"And how can the Dusks see anything when their hoods are zipped up?"

"MYED," Marluxia tried again. "STOP."

"I've always wondered about the Dusk thing…" Zexion mused. He was suddenly distracted by a sound from outside. "Shh! I think that's him…"

Xehanort wandered into the room. He snapped his fingers, and his clothing changed to pajamas. (Axel felt a slight rustling sensation as the pajamas on the hanger behind him disappeared and the empty hanger to his right suddenly bore a black cloak.) He ran his hand in front of his mouth…a wash of water and toothpaste rushed between his jaws, then dissipated.

The weary villain climbed into his bed, ready to dream of destruction. He fell asleep, but he wouldn't stay asleep for long.

"XEHANORT!"

Xehanort sat right up in bed, looking to see who had called his name. His gaze rested on a figure next to his bed, the figure of someone who should have been dead…Ansem the Wise.

"For shame." Ansem shook his head. "I take you in, save your life, raise you like the son I never had…you never knew how much I cared for you, Xehanort. And yet you betrayed me. You stole my identity, you ravaged the worlds, you abused hearts…and all for what? Do you not feel the wrongs you have done in your heart?"

"I think," Xehanort replied with a grin that made his guest nervous, "that you should know better than to think I would be fooled by such a cheap illusion…Zexion."

Xehanort stood on his bed and clutched "Ansem" by the neck.

"No, no," "Ansem" choked, struggling. "Let me go." He transformed back into the shape-shifting Zexion.

"NO!" Marluxia burst forth from the closet, closely followed by Axel, Larxene, and Myed.

Xehanort dropped Zexion and prepared to do battle. He had not been ready for an ambush by five people…he had instead been constantly prepared for an ambush by twenty.

Larxene tried to send lightning bolts at Xehanort, but he deflected them and sent them at Myed, who ducked just in time. Axel flung his chakrams, but Xehanort turned his fists to ice and grabbed the flaming weapons without harming himself. He then used Axel's weapons to chop at the flowers Marluxia was sending to tie him up, and danced out of the way of the pink scythe.

Zexion tried to open up a portal, but the dark circle shriveled as soon as he got it to appear. He reasoned that it was Xehanort's doing, and realized they were all trapped…

"Zexion!" Myed screamed. "Back us up here!"

Zexion looked to Marluxia, and they nodded at each other. Each went flying at Xehanort from a different side—Marluxia from the left, Zexion from the right. They brandished the scythe and the Lexicon, respectively, ready to deal out injuries. Each had to dodge a chakram, and both weapons went flying back to the hands of their fiery master.

Suddenly, black thorny vines shot from Xehanort's sleeves…vines that Zexion found all too familiar…

Before he knew it, he was bound by the vines and propped against the wall like a sick trophy. The vines were quickly covering his face. He looked to his right to see another bundle of vines next to him, and a pink scythe lying on the floor…

"MARLY!" Zexion cried before vines obscured his face.

Larxene started flinging kunai, but Xehanort sidestepped every single one. Before long, Larxene was also bound and propped against the wall. She screamed an expletive before the plants covered her completely.

"LARX?" Axel spun to face the three bundles of vines. In that one moment of his distraction, he too was caught by vines.

Myed was the last of Xehanort's opponents to remain. He faced his nemesis, trembling. He knew the only way he or any of his friends were getting out of there alive was if he did something highly unpredictable.

He summoned his Sitar.

Xehanort got ready to block the water attacks.

Myed picked the Sitar up by its neck—something Xehanort was not expecting—and swung it so the base connected with Xehanort's face.

The Sitar exploded into splinters. Xehanort's eyes rolled back into his head, and he hit the floor, unconscious.

Once Xehanort's mental concentration was gone, the vines dissipated. Zexion flung his hand out to create a dark portal before the villain awoke.

"HURRY!" he cried.

Zexion, Marluxia, Axel, and Myed rushed through and onto the sands of the Destiny Islands.

The door to Xehanort's bedroom opened. Another member of the Neo-Organization walked in. He first registered the still body of his master. "What…?" When he spied Larxene, however, he grinned.

"Hello, Arlene," he greeted, removing his hood to identify himself as Voldemort. "It is always nice to meet up with a traitor…"

Larxene felt a somewhat familiar burning on her arm.

"LARX!" she heard Axel's voice say from beyond the portal. She quickly slid through, and the portal closed.

* * *

It was night on the Islands. The moon hung high overhead, illuminating the five shadows that had appeared from practically nowhere.

Despite the plan's failure, the sheer fact that all five had survived the battle was enough to make Larxene, Marluxia, and Axel extremely hyperactive. The three danced around, doing cartwheels, whooping and cheering.

"We made it!" Marluxia said, flopping onto the sand and staring into the sky.

"Interesting…" Zexion held his chin as he watched the others celebrate. "This shouldn't be able to happen."

"Huh?" Axel looked at him quizzically.

"Well, we don't have hearts…so it wouldn't make sense for you to be overjoyed."

"Well," said Axel, "maybe our hearts aren't as far away as we think."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Marluxia asked.

"Just something that popped into my head…" Axel said vaguely.

"Well," said Larxene, "as much as I hate to admit it, I think we all know who we have to thank for our survival."

Marluxia leapt up from the sand and rushed toward Myed. "MYED GLOMPAGE!" he cried, throwing his arms about Myed. Larxene joined in, making it a group hug. As soon as the two of them let go, Axel picked Myed up and swung him in a circle. Zexion patted the unexpected hero's shoulder, saying, "Well played, Myed. Well played."

Myed just stared at them sadly.

"Myed?" Axel asked. "Myed, what's wrong?"

Myed burst into tears. "I killed my Sitar!"

The others all looked on in understanding. They knew that music was one of Myed's greatest passions…how would he carry on without a way to play it?

* * *

"Oh beauteous queen, the time's at hand

To be the fairest in the land," the Magic Mirror crooned.

"While yet she breathes, my call was right,

The fairest here is still Snow White.

Yet through disaster, don't ask how,

The fair Princess is dying now."

* * *

Sora walked through the door to the cove to find Myed and Axel on the other side. "Hey, guys!" he greeted. "What's—"

"Shhh," said Axel. He pointed out to the beach further down the way.

Zexion was sprawled out on the sand, eyes closed, hands clasped behind his head. He seemed oblivious to the world around him.

"What's he doing here?" Sora asked.

"The ambush failed spectacularly," Axel explained, "and he didn't want to go back and face the others just yet."

"He's gotta be hot, lying on the sand in that black coat," Sora pointed out.

"Yeah, well, he ain't takin' that thing off," said Myed.

"Huh?" Axel asked. "I know the guy has quirks, but I didn't hear about that particular one. Does he wear it all day? Like, to bed and in the bath too?"

"No. Just out in public. You know…it's nothing."

"Sounds more like something," Axel bothered.

"He made me promise not to tell anybody," Myed defended.

"Well, now we have to know," said Axel.

"Hold on," Sora interjected. "It's Zexion's business…"

"Yeah, but you know what else? The three of us are best friends," Axel teased, "so no secrets. Out with it, man!"

"Okay, okay!" Myed gave in. "But you gotta promise not to tell Marly, 'cause he'll flip!"

"I swear," said Axel, and Sora nodded in agreement.

"Well…before the whole Castle Oblivion incident, back when we were searching out new members, Xemnas sent him and me to Atlantica to look for merNobodies. We didn't find any, but that's a different story. Well, when we got there and transformed into mermen, Zexion wouldn't come out from behind a clump of seaweed. I thought that was pretty weird, so I asked him to stop hiding and come look for new members with me already. He just poked his head out…hey, by the way, his hair looks really funny underwater. It flips all around and stuff."

"Sora's hair looks the same even when wet," said Axel. "It kinda creeps me out sometimes. Anyway, continue."

"He stuck his head out to tell me to go on my own, and then ducked back into the seaweed. I got fed up and dragged him out by the wrist. That's when I noticed what he looked like without a shirt. You know how everybody calls you skinny, Axel? Well, that's nothin' compared to Zexion. He's really thin…actually, thin's not the word. I think the word is…emaciated? I thought for a minute he was starving to death or something. I mean, you could count the ribs."

Axel and Sora looked taken aback.

"I asked him about it, 'cause I was concerned, you know? He said…well, you know Zexion's always been the most easily stressed in the Organization? Remember how he always used to lock himself in the library and not come out? Or when he cooped himself up in the basement of Castle Oblivion? It tore him apart when we all started fighting, and when Xemnas went sour. He told me he was wasting away from all the stress."

"Whoa," Axel sighed.

"Yeah," said Myed, "hard to believe, isn't it? That guy down there, the one leading us in the revolution, the one who twisted Riku's beliefs until he didn't know the difference between fantasy and reality, the one whose illusions confused the best of us…one of the originals of the Organization…he's being eaten away by his own fears."

"But wait," said Sora, "how can he be stressed or scared when he doesn't have a heart?"

"Well, some stuff was said last night…" Myed thought out loud. "Axel, what was that stuff you said about our hearts being closer than we think?"

"I've noticed that we feel things," said Axel, "and of course, by all logic, we shouldn't. So what's that supposed to mean? It's actually something I've been thinking about for a while. If we didn't have hearts, how come I missed Roxas? How come Roxas cared so much about Hayner, Pence, and Olette—the digital versions, anyway? How come you got so scared of Hades you probably wet your pants twice in the Underworld? I mean, it's obvious we're not whole…but what if we have traces of our hearts? Just little traces that refuse to go away?"

"Now that's just more proof right there," Myed said. "The heartless Axel I know wouldn't have gone that deep. Not on purpose, anyway."

"I can be deep."

"Anyway, I'm starting to think Zexion believes the same thing…"

The trio looked out toward the Nobody in repose.

"You think he's gonna be okay?" Sora asked.

"Well, not if things keep going on like this," said Axel. "I say, first thing, we get rid of Xehanort. That oughta take a lot of stress off his plate."

"Yeah," said Sora, looking out at the peaceful Schemer.

* * *

"No one's seen Iago around?" Jasmine asked the genie. "Are you sure?"

"Searched the whole palace, top to bottom, every nook and cranny," said the genie.

"I wonder where he could have—"

Jasmine never got to finish her statement before she toppled backward. The genie caught her in his arms.

"Jasmine! Jasmine! Somebody call 911! Is there a doctor in the house?" On instinct, the genie turned into a rather blue version of Dr. John Dorian.

At least she was still breathing, he observed…

* * *

Axel and Sora walked across the beach. Myed was off somewhere kicking coconuts in despair.

"What's wrong with him?" Sora asked.

"Well," Axel explained, "there was a tiny little disaster that happened last night during the ambush…say, I've got a favor to ask of you. You're good at building stuff like rafts and all, right?"

* * *

Cinderella's regal spouse knelt by her side as she lay unconscious in the place she had fallen.

"What's wrong with her?" he demanded of her fairy godmother.

The wise woman replied, "I don't know."

* * *

"Okay," said Mulan, standing in the center of the beach. "Someone try and fight me."

The other heroes all stared at her.

"I'm not gonna hit a girl," Aladdin protested.

"Will someone just try and fight me?" Mulan growled. "We can't let our skills fall short before we have to go into battle."

"Okay," said Ariel, "I'll do it."

Ariel was more experienced in the martial arts than she was in swordfighting. As the two clashed with their wooden swords, it became very clear that Mulan was going to win.

"Okay," she said once the duel was over, "who's next?"

"If you want to fight me that badly…" Aladdin stepped forward.

Five minutes later, he sat on the ground, dazed. "Whoa…"

"Why are you surprised?" Mulan grinned down at him.

Again and again, Mulan was challenged, and she won every duel. The only two beings to actually give her a challenge were Hercules and Leon, but eventually she won against them as well, earning new respect amongst the others.

"Hey, Riku," she said, noticing the teen walking by with a large piece of driftwood and his weapon, Soul Eater. "Care for a fight?"

"Not right now," said Riku. "I'm meeting Sora in the secret place under the tree to work on a project."

"Okay, then."

"So you really think this Xehanort guy is going to make that much trouble that we'll need to fight so well?" Sparrow asked.

"Let's just say that from what I've heard," Mulan replied, "if you can't even beat me, you're in trouble. Now, everyone pair off and practice some sparring. Ariel, you'll be with me…I think you need a bit more work than some of the others."

Peter Pan snickered, but the others shot him glares. They felt rather bad that Ariel was being embarrassed so…hopefully in the minutes that followed, her dueling skill would improve and make up for the humiliation.

* * *

Alice's sister sat on the riverbank, reading as usual.

"Must you always read such boring things?" Alice asked. She began to climb a tree.

"Don't do that," her sister warned. "It's dangerous."

Alice slipped and fell from the tree. Her sister stood with a lightning reflex and caught the girl. "I told you, she chided."

"I don't feel well," Alice told her sister, "not at all…"

* * *

"Myed!" Sora called out.

Myed had gone back to the mainland and was aimlessly wandering around his yard. He looked up to see Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Axel approaching, dragging behind them a wheeled cart. Sitting in that cart was…

"No way," Myed whispered to himself. He repeated, as a shout, "NO WAY!" and barged toward the cart. He picked up the item within it: a brand new Sitar, painted with the designs of the ocean in sky blue and sea foam green. It didn't resemble the Nobody symbol in the least.

Myed ran his hands across the strings…it played with fantastic pitch. His eyes welled up with tears before he ran around hugging each of his friends. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he sobbed.

"Riku and I carved it," Axel explained, "and Sora and Kairi handled the tuning and the painting."

"It's…it's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me…"

"Well, we're friends, MyMy," said Kairi. "And after all, you did help me with my song."

"Which means you helped Kairi and I…confess our feelings." Sora blushed and moved his gaze over to his girlfriend.

"Yeah, and you saved my life," said Axel, "after all."

"And…well, you haven't exactly done anything for me," said Riku, "but you've been a good friend."

Myed gently lifted the Sitar from the cart and began to play the notes to Simple and Clean. Kairi gently hummed along, hypnotizing Sora.

All of a sudden, two figures came running over to Sora from a distance. When Sora squinted into the horizon, he realized that they were Aladdin and Belle's Prince.

"Sora!" Aladdin cried. "Something's wrong!"

"I have a horrible feeling," said the Prince, "like something has happened to my Belle…"

"I'm afraid something horrible happened to Jasmine," Aladdin moaned. "I can feel it in my heart!"

"Guys, guys," said Sora, "calm down…"

Then Sora's greatest horror struck: the humming suddenly stopped mid-phrase, and he heard a thump from behind him. When he turned, his precious Kairi was lying on the ground, eyes closed…

"KAIRI!" Sora dove to her side. He picked her head up, settling it on his lap and gently stroking her hair. "Kairi, Kairi! Open your eyes, please!"

Kairi's eyelids fluttered. "I feel so faint…"

"Kairi, what's wrong?"

"They said Jasmine…and Belle…"

Sora started to put the pieces together. "The seven Princesses of Heart…"

"There's only one thing…that could be causing this," Kairi croaked.

"What's that? Kairi, tell me!"

"Something's wrong…with Kingdom Hearts…"


	5. Nightmares

5

5: Nightmares

"You called, Master?" Christopher Carrion asked, appearing at Xehanort's side.

"Ah, yes, Carrion," said Xehanort. "I think it is time to show the traitors and the forces of light what they are dealing with…in your usual way."

Carrion smiled widely. "My pleasure, Master."

He disappeared in a cloud of darkness.

That taken care of, Xehanort strode toward Yagami's chambers. He found the boy sprawled on the floor, paper-white and sweating, clutching a tattered notebook to his chest.

He sat up with difficulty. "Xehanort…" he choked. "I was right. It was too powerful to handle. The Death Note is only supposed to be used on human and animal hearts…not the Heart of All Worlds…"

Xehanort had earlier ordered Yagami to write "Kingdom Hearts" in the Death Note, thereby obliterating the Heart of All Worlds. It hadn't quite worked.

"But look!" Xehanort pointed out the window. The great heart-shaped moon, already pockmarked by the explosion Ansem the Wise had caused, was currently missing an entire chunk, which had broken off and floated away. The moon no longer resembled a heart…it was more like a blob.

"All we need to do is write it once, maybe twice more!" Xehanort encouraged Yagami.

"Are you insane? Look at what it did to my Death Note!" Yagami waved the notebook in Xehanort's face. Half the pages were missing, and the cover looked as though a feral beast had dragged its claws across it. "One more writing will destroy the weapon entirely!"

"Yagami…you will learn to follow my orders, or else…"

"I'm sorry! I'll do it!" Yagami whimpered.

* * *

Sora leaned over his unconscious girlfriend. "Isn't there anything we can do to help her?" he whimpered.

"I know who'll know," said Axel. He disappeared into a dark portal. Five minutes later, he returned, Vexen and Zexion trailing behind him.

"See?" Axel said, motioning to Kairi. "Here she is…"

Kairi shifted a bit. "Mmmph…"

"We'll take her back to her house," said Vexen.

He and Zexion picked Kairi up and began to walk toward her home.

"Are you sure those two are qualified to handle this?" Sora asked.

"Relax," answered Axel. "Vexen's a science geek. He's actually medically trained. Kairi won't die on him. And Zexion spends so much time reading, he pretty much knows anything."

"If you're sure." Sora looked wistfully after the two men disappearing into the twilight. "I think I'm going to go to bed now…I need to sleep all of this off."

* * *

Later that night, Kairi lay in her bed, still semi-conscious. She wriggled every once in a while, and mumbled something incoherent.

"My Curagas haven't been working," Vexen mumbled. "Perhaps if a Potion was given through injection…"

The two were interrupted by the appearance of a hooded member of the Neo-Organization. The hooded figure gave a slight twitch, as though he hadn't expected to find people awake in the house at that hour. He clenched a fist, and then opened it, letting two very strange creatures fall on the floor. They resembled vomit-yellow worms that squirmed jerkily.

The figure then vanished.

"What was that?" Zexion asked.

Vexen charged forward to meet one of the creatures. "Quick!" he shouted. "Kill them!" He brought his boot down on one of the yellow worms, crushing it. Zexion hurried to squash its mate.

"Those were nightmares," said Vexen, "in corporeal form. They looked nastier than any other nightmares I've seen."

"You don't think he was planning to use them against—"

"That's exactly what he was planning, Zexion."

Zexion turned to the door. "I'm going to check on them."

"Zexion!" Vexen called out. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay with Kairi? I can go check on the others…"

"I'm the one who got us into this trouble," said Zexion.

"Not really…listen, sometimes I think you're working yourself to death. You need a break. Stay here."

Zexion walked out the door without a reply, leaving Vexen to watch over Kairi.

* * *

Screaming.

Terrible screaming, as though the dreamer was being disemboweled with hot irons.

Zexion could hear it from outside the window of Myed's house. He quickened his pace. He didn't bother with the door; he simply leapt into the air, and, defying gravity, sailed through an open window that led right into Myed's bedroom.

At first, the sight was horrifying…Myed was writhing more violently than the worms, screaming until he was red in the face. His dreams had obviously been invaded by something malevolent.

Jack Skellington burst into the room—for he was one of the heroes to stay with Myed—and emptied a large bucket of water onto the tortured dreamer.

Myed immediately awoke and sat up, still screaming and holding his head.

"Myed!" Zexion cried. "Stop! It's over!"

Myed fell silent but for heavy gasping. He then looked over at Zexion. "Horrors…" he whispered, "horrors…"

"Xehanort sent one of his lackeys to plague us all with nightmares," Zexion explained. "That's what just happened to you."

"Can't go back there…can't face that again…"

Zexion turned to Skellington. "Didn't he try and infect you?"

"As a matter of fact," Skellington said with a smile, "I did have a nightmare! It was the best one I'd had in years…quite grotesque. It gave me some ideas for next Halloween, although some of it was TOO graphic to pull off…I was rather disappointed when the pained screams of my host interrupted my dream."

"That's right…" Zexion thought out loud. "You're a child of fright…born and raised in Halloween Town…a veritable Lord of Nightmares yourself. Any nightmare would be a pleasurable experience for you." He turned to Myed. "Be very thankful," he said, "that you have a housemate who is bizarre enough to think of throwing your element at you."

"Thank you…Jack…" Myed wheezed.

"Since you're immune," said Zexion, "I'll need your help. I'm going over to the Usual Spot to check on the other Nobodies. While I'm there, I need you to go to the others' houses and wake up anyone who's suffering."

"How shall I do that?"

"Same way you woke up Myed. Throw water at them."

"But water's his element. That was meant to comfort him. Won't water cause the others discomfort?"

It was at times like this that Zexion realized the merits of not having a heart. "I don't really care about their discomfort right now," he said. "I care about them not being trapped in nightmares. Now let's go."

"NO!" Myed screamed. He burst into tears, sobbing, "Don't leave me…don't leave me alone in the dark…"

Suddenly, a roar came from the lower floor.

"Who else is staying here?" Zexion asked.

"Simba, Pence, and Peter," Skellington answered.

"Of course, that roar would be Simba…let's take care of the others in this house first. Then we'll go out and find the rest."

"Fear not!" Skellington cried, rushing out of the room. "The Master of Fright shall save you!"

Not even Zexion could wrap his mind around that oxymoron.

In a matter of minutes, Pence, Peter, and Simba were awakened, and they gathered in Myed's bedroom along with the still-sobbing water mage.

Simba kept shaking his head, eyes squeezed shut. "My father," he moaned. "I saw him die…again and again…"

"That was easily the worst night of my life," said Pence, "and the sad thing is, the night's not even over."

"I'd suggest staying awake for now," said Zexion. "Jack and I are going out to see to the others. Also, STAY TOGETHER. That will help not only with defense…but I'm really not sure ANY of you want to go back to your rooms alone."

With that, Zexion portalled away, and Skellington ran out of the house.

"We'll just have to hope that doesn't happen again," said Peter.

Pence curled up into a sort of cross-legged ball on the floor.

Myed shook uncontrollably until he felt the heat of someone warm and furry climbing onto the bed next to him. Simba, for some reason, felt drawn to the water mage…perhaps it was because some quality about him reminded Simba of the charming young lion who had courted his daughter. Simba nudged Myed's face with his nose and began purring, hoping to calm his frightened friend.

Myed looked up at Simba. "Zexion's right," he whispered. "We gotta stay together."

"Don't worry," said Peter, "I know you three are shocked beyond belief, but I'll stay here and protect you."

"Admit it," said Pence, "you're scared too."

* * *

"AAAARGH!"

It was hard to tell if Riku was screaming because of the nightmare he was leaving, or because of the cold water that had just been dumped on his face.

He sat right up in bed. "Jack?" he asked the skeleton who hovered over him with a bucket. "Did…did you give me that nightmare? Because…let me say…it was way worse than your usual standards…"

"It seems to be Xehanort's doing," Skellington explained. "Come down to the kitchen. The others are waiting there."

Riku hauled himself out of bed and down to the kitchen, where Mickey, Hayner, and Captain Sparrow were sitting around a table with cups of hot chocolate. All three of them were staring into the cups with different expressions. Mickey looked terrified due to the dream he had just exited. Hayner looked as though someone had drained him of his usual exuberance. Sparrow looked as though he wished terribly for some rum to slip into his hot chocolate.

"Did Xehanort's nightmares get you too?" Riku asked his housemates.

"It was horrible…" Hayner whispered, "the worst thing…"

Mickey just closed his eyes in rememberance.

"You kidding?" Sparrow slammed his fist on the table and stood. "I came face-to-face with me worst fears!"

"Zexion advises that you all stay awake and stay together," said Skellington. "I'm going to go over to Sora's house and see if they were affected too." With that, he breezed out the door.

"It was like all of the darkness within me that I had to face in my past," Riku explained, "bubbled up inside my brain and attacked me over and over again…I was constantly facing the darkness inside myself, and I was losing."

"Sounds almost as awful as my dream," said Sparrow. "I was on a nice little rowboat filled to the brim with all the gold a decent pirate could want, when these horrible monsters leap out of the sea and start takin' me gold! At the end, I was left on the rowboat with no riches left!"

Riku scowled. "THAT'S YOUR IDEA OF A NIGHTMARE?"

* * *

"EEEEEEYAHH-HOO-HOO-HOOEEEEEE!" Goofy yelled, having been ripped from his bad dreams by a splash of water.

"Oh, dear," said Skellington. "I should have known that not everyone would appreciate the water."

"Gawrsh!" Goofy couldn't stop shaking. "I just had the most awful nightmare!"

"Everyone is having them," said Skellington. "It's an attack by Xehanort."

Hercules and Leon wandered into the living room, where Goofy had been sleeping on the couch. "He's trying to break us down," said Leon. "We have to show him we're not afraid."

"But it was so scary!" Goofy protested.

"At least it was just a dream," said Hercules. "Now, as long as we stay together, we'll be able to face whatever Xehanort has next."

"We'll just need to get Sora down here," said Skellington. "Where is he?"

"He's sleeping over at Riku's tonight," said Hercules. "He said that Kairi's plight was causing him too much stress, and he needed his other best friend at his side tonight to calm him down."

"I was just at Riku's house," said Skellington. "Sora definitely wasn't there."

For the first time, actual horror swept across the skeleton's skull. "Oh, dear. Zexion will not be happy."

* * *

Zexion charged into the Usual Spot to see all of his friends in the Organization battling the nightmares in their sleep. He rushed from Nobody to Nobody, shaking them awake. Most of them just shuddered quietly upon awakening, but Larxene sat up with a scream.

"NO!" she cried. "NO, YOU MONSTERS, LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Zexion barely had time to wonder before he progressed to the last and most precious…Marluxia.

"Marly," he said, shaking the flora mage's shoulders. "Marly, wake up."

Marluxia pried his eyes open. "Locusts…" he muttered. "They ate my garden, and they started eating my flesh…"

"It's okay," said Zexion. "They weren't real. It was a nightmare, sent by Xehanort. You're okay. There are no locusts."

"So horrible…"

"Only a dream."

Marluxia looked about himself to confirm that he was indeed in the Usual Spot and not in an insect-ravaged garden.

"Listen," said Zexion, forming a change in plans in his mind. "I've got to go back to the islands to make sure everyone else is okay, but after that, I'm going to tell Vexen to watch over Kairi on his own. Then I'm coming right back here to stay with you, okay?"

Marluxia nodded, looking nothing less than shell-shocked.

Zexion left the Usual Spot and began to conjure a portal.

"Wait," said a voice from behind him.

Zexion turned to face Larxene. "What?"

"I'm coming with you."

"No. Stay here with the others."

"Listen, pal. The Prince felt it when Belle was in trouble, Myed could tell when Axel was drowning, and Aladdin felt an instinct when Jasmine was getting sick…assuming the same thing happened to her that happened to Kairi. I just want to make sure my particular dream didn't come true, that it wasn't one of THOSE instincts."

"You dreamed of someone in trouble?"

"Yeah, and I need you to take me to him."

Zexion stared at her, curious.

"Well, if you MUST know," Larxene hissed, "I dreamed that indescribably grotesque monsters were tearing Axel limb from limb. I just wanna make sure he's okay, that's all."

"Larxene, you'd be rather in my way—"

"I DEMAND that you take me to the islands NOW!"

Zexion couldn't argue with the fit of rage. "All right," he sighed. "Come on."

* * *

Axel was drowning again. However, there seemed to be no surface to get up to…the water was endless in all directions. Shady sea monsters squirmed past in the distance, providing for his only company as he came closer and closer to death…

He suddenly felt an electric current running through his muscles. It had come from some alternate form of reality…the REAL reality…

The water was only a dream. Axel was in his bed, nightmaring.

He noticed two things: first of all, he was in a cold sweat…an alien feeling.

Second, when he opened his eyes, he came to face a strange sight…he never thought he'd be so glad to see that sarcastic smirk hovering over him.

"Have a good sleep?" Larxene asked.

"Of course not," Axel growled.

"I know. Xehanort's sending us all nightmares. You okay?"

"I don't exactly know yet. Give me a minute."

"Okay then. Donald, Aladdin, Tarzan, and the Prince are already awake, and Zexion's milling around somewhere. You stay there. I'll go make us all tea. Now don't you go back to sleep now, and whatever you do, don't you DARE even think about scaring me like that again."

As Larxene left, Axel wondered what she meant by his having scared her…but he didn't care. He stared up at the ceiling. His hazy eyes almost hallucinated the sights of little pink hearts and chirping bluebirds whirling around and around his head.

There was no doubt that Axel was thoroughly twitterpated.

* * *

Zexion left Axel's house to go make his way to Kairi's. He was intercepted by Skellington, who had been making his way over to Axel's place to check on its inhabitants.

"Don't worry," said Zexion. "I've already taken care of them in there."

"Oh, good!" A smile swept across Jack's face, only to be replaced by a worried frown. "There is another problem, though…"

"What is it now?"

"Well, you see, Sora seems to have gone missing, and nobody knows where he is."

Zexion thought it over. Sora was crazy for Kairi…Kairi was bedridden because something was amiss at the Heart of All Worlds…

"He DIDN'T!" Zexion screamed. "That little IDIOT! Now I've got to go save his sorry butt! Skellington, just keep up the good work." He gritted his teeth as he opened a new portal. "I'll be back."

* * *

Sora tread the alleys of the World That Never Was carefully. He didn't want to get caught by Xehanort or any of his new lackeys.

Perhaps, he thought, he should have brought a friend with him, or at least not lied to the others about his whereabouts. However, they would have suggested waiting it out to see if Kairi would come to on her own first, and accused Sora of being blinded by love. Besides, in this particularly volatile world, someone was going to get hurt, and Sora preferred that he be the only one to do so.

He finally came to a point where he could view the great heart-shaped moon…or, rather, the moon that was once heart-shaped. A whole chunk of it was missing.

"I see you have chosen to do the foolish thing," came a metallic voice from behind the young hero.

Sora spun around to come face-to-face with one of the Neo-Organization. The man took down his hood, but his face was still not visible, as he was wearing a black mask that amplified his breathing. This man was known in some circles as Anakin Skywalker, but more commonly as Darth Vader.

"What are you doing to Kingdom Hearts?" Sora screamed.

"That is not your business," said Vader. He drew a light saber from his side, and brandished it at Sora.

Sora smiled. He had faced this sort of weapon before and prevailed.

The battle between the two was long, and there were near misses—at one point, Sora almost lost his head, but a quick movement ensured that the light saber only sliced through the chain of his necklace and not his neck—but in the end, Sora had Vader pinned beneath his foot, the Keyblade jammed against his neck.

In a rush of darkness, Vader portalled away, leaving Sora to lose his balance once the body beneath his foot was gone.

Sora shook off the memory of the recent battle and continued to make his way to the broken heart.

A hand roughly grabbed the back of his shirt, and a steely voice hissed in his ear, "What do you think you are DOING?"

Sora turned to come face-to-face with an irate Zexion. "I was only trying to help Kairi…" he explained.

"Yes, I can SEE that. But did you have to do it in such an IDIOTIC way? Get much closer to that moon, and Xehanort and the others will come down here and strike you dead, all at once."

"I thought I could…"

"Do you think you're invincible? You're irreplaceable! You get yourself killed, and our whole purpose dies with you!"

Sora was flattered and humiliated at the same time.

"Come on, then," said Zexion, "let's get back to the islands. And we'll pay a little visit to your girlfriend while we're at it. Maybe she's better by now, and you can stop getting these suicidal plans in your head."

* * *

Once they returned to the islands' mainland, they walked in silence down the streets. Sora couldn't help but stare at the man's chest, remembering the story Myed had told him.

"Myed told you," said Zexion, "didn't he?"

"Wha…?"

"I see you staring at me. Worried."

"Axel made him do it. I tried to tell him not—"

"It's all right." Zexion stopped in his tracks. "Are you wondering?"

"Kinda…yeah."

Zexion unzipped his cloak. Underneath, he wore a simple black shirt and pants. He lifted the shirt.

Sora gasped. It was worse than he had pictured. Zexion looked as though he should be hospitalized for anorexia. He barely had a stomach remaining, and his ribs were a defined mountain range across his chest.

Once he was sure Sora had looked his fill, Zexion lowered the shirt and went about redoing his cloak.

"Zexion…" Sora started. "I know we've never been the best of friends, but if there's anything I can do to help you…anything…"

"Save it," said Zexion. "Just help me get rid of Xehanort. That'll help a lot."

"Okay."

They resumed their walking in silence.

* * *

"I was under the impression," Xehanort snarled, "that your sort of weapon was the toughest in the multiverse. You should have been able to destroy the Keyblade easily."

"I would have thought that you, my liege, of all people, would have remembered that a light saber is no match for a Keyblade," Vader argued.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You fought him with two and failed."

"They are not light sabers! They are aerial blades! There's a difference!"

"I've seen your weapons. They look like light sabers. They sound like light sabers. They function like light sabers. They are light sabers."

Xehanort was fuming on the inside, but managed to retain outward composure. "The point is, I ordered you to dispose of our intruder, and you failed. Such action deserves the maximum punishment."

"I did manage to get ahold of this," said Vader, holding out Sora's crown-shaped pendant.

Xehanort's face lit up when he saw it like a child's face lights up at the sight of a brightly wrapped birthday gift. "On second thought, you are pardoned."

* * *

Zexion and Sora entered Kairi's house to find all of the houseguests crammed into one room. Kairi was in the middle of the bed, fully conscious (to Sora's relief), sitting up and sipping some soup. Mulan and Ariel, still suffering from their nightmares, were snuggled in under the blanket on either side of her. Olette sat at the foot of the bed. Leaning over the bed in concern were Kairi's adoptive parents, Letitia and Loran. Vexen loomed in the corner, making sure his patient did not relapse.

"Sora!" cried Letitia. "Thank goodness you're here. Kairi woke up, and you were the first person she wanted to see."

Sora approached the bed, barely noticing that Zexion had vanished. "Kairi? You okay?"

Kairi nodded. "Whatever happened, it passed."

"I went to Kingdom Hearts, Kairi. It was broken, like they were trying to destroy it."

"Sora…where's your necklace?"

"I lost it in a battle there."

"Battle? Are YOU okay?"

Sora smiled. "Never better."

"We've all had a rough night," said Loran. "Perhaps we had better find a way to relax." He reached for a remote control.

Televisions were a rare item on the Destiny Islands, only belonging to the wealthy. Kairi's adoptive parents, however, were financially gifted, so the young princess had a television in her room. Loran flicked it on and began to channel-surf.

"Can we check the IIS?" Sora asked. "I want to see if any of this has made the news." He then sat on the end of the bed next to Olette, finding Kairi's feet under the blanket and squeezing them with his hand.

The IIS, or Interdimensional Information System, was a channel that had been added to every world's airwaves ever since Sora's journeying had awakened everyone to the existence of other worlds. It covered news from all corners of the multiverse.

Instead of the customary news anchors at their desk, however, Xehanort's face filled the screen.

"And under my new order, the worlds shall prosper, no matter if it seems 'cruel' at first," he announced. "Remember this…if you doubt I can be trusted, notice that I am a chosen one." He gestured to his neck.

"He's wearing my necklace!" Sora yelled.

"I will work for the betterment of the worlds," said Xehanort, "and all you have to do is submit to my leadership."

"Yeah, right!" Sora yelled. "What does he think he's playing at?"

The camera zoomed out to show Xehanort's whole body, and everyone in the room gasped. The villain had an Oblivion Keyblade in his right hand.

Sora made for the door.

"Where are you going?" Olette asked.

"To talk to the one person who can make sense of this," Sora answered.

* * *

Zexion entered the darkened Usual Spot.

"About time," said Xaldin.

"Is it safe for us to go to sleep now?" Luxord asked.

"I don't know…but the nightmares should have worn off by now. We could all try it."

"Okay," said Marluxia. "But since Larxene and Vexen left…the couch belongs to me." He rushed to the worn-down sofa and stretched out on it.

"No fair," the other Nobodies chimed. They all accepted it, however, and closed their eyes.

Zexion walked up to the sofa, kneeling at Marluxia's side. "You shouldn't have any more nightmares," he assured his beloved, "but if you do, all you have to do is wake up. I'll be right here."

"Okay," said Marluxia, blinking drowsily.

Zexion watched the pink-haired man drift slowly into sleep.

Later that night, Marluxia did suffer another nightmare, but not one induced by Xehanort…this was more of the garden variety bad dream.

His eyes flicked open. He glanced around in terror, but his gaze eventually settled on the side of the couch. Zexion had fallen asleep while kneeling at his side, and his head rested on the edge of the couch cushion.

"Zexion," Marluxia whispered under his breath so as not to wake the silver-haired man.

It was then that the idea first occurred to him…a Nobody, by definition, should not have felt so calmed at a sight of another that all nightmares were instantly forgotten. Perhaps a piece of his heart still remained inside him, causing those feelings…

He said again, quietly so that Zexion could not hear, "Glad you're here." He reached out to ruffle his downy, silver hair.

He then settled back to sleep and better dreams.

* * *

Sora burst into Riku's kitchen. "King Mickey!" he cried, remembering to bow respectfully at the last minute.

"Sora!" the King cried. "What's wrong?"

"There's a problem," Sora began. He told the whole story of Xehanort's appearance on the IIS with a Keyblade and his necklace.

"This is bad," said Mickey.

"No duh," Riku interrupted.

"You see, Sora," said Mickey, "well…I should start by asking, how long have you had that necklace?"

"Since I was really little? I don't remember."

"Did you ever wonder why the standard Kingdom Key carried the same pattern in its blade that was on your necklace?"

Sora thought about it. "I never noticed that…"

"That necklace was bestowed upon you sometime at your birth," said Mickey, "to signify that you were to be the most powerful Keyblade Master of your generation. If Xehanort has it, he can convince the world that he instead is the most powerful Keyblade Master, and those who don't know any better will follow whatever he says."

"You see?" said Sparrow. "The boy's lost his pretty trinket, just like I lost all the gold in my dream, and he looks more horrified than me."

"There's a difference!" Riku practically screamed.

"I fail to see the disparity."

"That's terrible!" Sora cried. "If Xehanort has that much power…"

"I know," Mickey said somberly. "And to top it off, I don't even know HOW he got hold of a Keyblade of his own. I'm afraid things just got a lot worse for us, Sora. A lot worse."


	6. The Enforcers

6

6: The Enforcers

"All right," Mulan said to her rather sleepy fighting students the next morning as they gathered in the palm grove in the cove. "Today, I want to see you really tested. We have a few volunteers from the Organization today who are going to fight you. We have here the most skilled, the most clever, and the most driven by blind rage."

By that, Mulan meant Xaldin, Zexion, and Saïx.

"The battle rules shall be this: the two teams will be the Organization three versus the rest of you. I shall see how long it takes for the rest of you to beat them, if at all."

"They won't," said Xaldin.

Saïx fingered the blunt wooden claymore he had been given for the practice fight. "Can I not use my own weapon?"

"NO!" everyone present chorused.

"May I call a session for strategizing?" Sparrow asked, raising his hand.

Mulan sighed. "Fine. But in a real battle, you wouldn't get time to plan."

Sparrow gathered the others around him. "Okay, here's the plan," he said. "Leon, Hercules, Simba, you're the strongest, so you take on the guy with the dreadlocks. Prince, you join them, 'cause you have a gripe against him for the rose incident. Aladdin, Skellington, Tarzan, and I will gang up on Big Blue over there. The Silverhead looks like a pushover, so Pan can handle him on his own. Ariel, sorry, love, but you have the fighting skills of a stick of celery, so I'm gonna ask you to sit this fight out. Ready…let's go!" The huddle broke.

"Ready…go!" Mulan cried.

Within five minutes, the Organization three had the others screaming for mercy.

"OW! OW! OW! STOP BEATING ME WITH THAT THING!" Sparrow yelled, writhing on the floor.

"Shut up! You're so annoying! If I had my REAL claymore, I wouldn't have to put up with your whining much longer!" Saïx growled.

Most of the others had been pinned to palm trees by Xaldin's lances. Mulan smacked her forehead before asking, "Where are Peter Pan, Leon, and Simba?"

Three muffled groans came from within the pages of Zexion's Lexicon. Zexion grinned maliciously.

"You turned them into ILLUSTRATIONS?"

"That's how I fight."

"That barely took ten minutes," Xaldin bragged, crossing his arms and leaning against a tree. The other two followed suit.

A coconut dropped out of the tree, hitting Xaldin on the head. A second coconut hit Saïx, and a third hit Zexion. The Lancer, the Diviner, and the Schemer hit the ground, unconscious.

Ariel dropped from the palm trees overhead. "Thank you for telling me to sit out of the battle, Jack," she said with a wink.

"But…but…" Jack suddenly switched demeanors. "Exactly what I was planning all along. I'm glad you picked up on it."

"Nice work, Ariel!" Mulan cheered. "Excellent use of the element of surprise! As for the rest of you, good work, but we can't be so conventional when we're up against villains who know our fighting style. Now, somebody wake up Zexion so he can get the others out of that book."

Walking off the training field, Leon approached Mulan.

"You're a good coach," he droned.

"Thank you."

"Where did you learn to teach others to fight?"

"I trained with one of the best myself." Mulan blushed, remembering the days she had studied under the general Li Shang.

There suddenly came the sound of raspy panting approaching from the direction of the sea. A disheveled ball of red planted itself in the sand in front of Mulan and Leon.

Mulan bent over to pluck the creature from the ground. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Name's Iago…" the bird panted. "Friend of Aladdin's. Listen…ya gotta listen to me…the Enforcers are coming!"

"Who?"

"I was in Maleficent's lair. She locked me up in some kind of jar. She called all her villainy friends over to talk about how she wanted them to be some kind of police force or something. Something about enforcing the rule of the Keyblade Master Xehanort…well, they got in a fight, which tends to happen when you get a bunch of villains from different worlds in the same room…"

"Not just villains," Leon testified.

"Anyway, Jafar launched a lightning ray at Oogie Boogie, but he missed, and it hit the jar I was in. It broke, and I escaped, and I came flying here as fast as I could…"

"Come on," said Mulan. "We have to get this news to Sora, Zexion, and the King."

* * *

Mickey, Zexion, and Sora sat around the table in Riku's dining room while Iago recounted his story.

"And Maleficent said something about binding them," he gushed, "so if one of them called, they could bring the rest of 'em to the same place."

"So we can't let ANY of Maleficent's flunkies get here," Sora clarified. "Hey…wait a minute…what were you doing in Maleficent's lair anyway?"

"What? Oh, that! That's…nothing. The point is, the Enforcers are COMING! And they said you, Sora, and your friends were the most wanted people they were going for FIRST!"

Mickey stood. "We have to get a protective barrier around the islands."

"We can do that?" Sora asked.

"It takes an awful lot of magic…but we've got all of your friends here, Sora, and most of them are skilled in magic."

"A lot of power is needed…" Zexion clutched the lower half of his face thoughtfully. "This is also where I come in. I will retrieve the others from Twilight Town."

A dark portal began to open behind him. "Besides," he said, "it will be good to hide them behind the same shield." He faded into the portal, which closed.

* * *

In mere moments, all of the heroes and the Organization were lined up on the beach.

"Ready?" Mickey asked.

"Ready!" everyone chimed.

Goofy, Hercules, Tarzan, Aladdin, Ariel, Skellington, Peter, Mulan, Sparrow, Simba, and Leon all concentrated on focusing their limited powers into a barrier around the territory of the mainland and the smaller island. Each member of the Organization forced their element into the mix, strengthening the barrier with the powers of space, wind, ice, earth, illusion, the moon, fire, water, time, plants, and lightning. Donald used his powerful sorcery to weave all of the magic together into a strong shield. Mickey, Sora, and Riku lifted their Keyblades, coating the shield in light. Kairi was the last to add to the barrier, feeding it the others' memories of Maleficent's usual crowd so that the barrier would keep out them and them alone.

(It should be noted that just as her Nobody controlled the power of memory, Kairi too could work with that power.)

Olette, Hayner, and Pence just looked on in awe.

"It's done," Mickey announced. "We should be safe."

"Does this mean we gotta stay on this dump of a world?" Larxene asked.

"Hey!" Sora yelled. "Don't call my world a dump!"

Axel sighed with happiness, or as much happiness as one lacking a heart could attempt to have. She was staying…

* * *

The castaway washed up on the cove later that afternoon.

Sora and Riku walked through the palm grove, chatting. "And here's where Ariel dropped the coconuts on their heads," Sora explained, laughing slightly.

"I wish I could've seen the looks on their faces before they passed out," Riku joked.

"Riku…who's that?"

A woman had washed up on the shore; face down in the sand, unmoving.

Both boys chivalrously rushed to her to see if she needed help.

"Hey! Miss!" Sora called out. "Are you okay?"

The woman, a beautiful brunette clad in a blue gown, looked up at Sora. "I think so…" she said in a British voice that sounded oddly familiar, though Sora couldn't place it.

"What happened to you?" Riku asked.

"I was on a ship that was sailing nearby…there was a horrible storm, and it was wrecked…I swam here for my life…oh, it hurts all over…"

"Don't worry," said Sora, "we'll help you. Come on." He extended a hand to help up the unfortunate castaway.

She needed support to walk; she did so only with one arm around Sora and the other around Riku. They brought her to the dock, where they settled her into a rowboat and proceeded to bring her to the mainland.

"What's your name?" Sora asked.

"Vanessa," the woman answered.

* * *

That night, Sora settled down into his bed, hoping no more nightmares would plague him that night.

He sat up. He remembered where he had heard that voice before…

"Jane," he said, remembering the young woman he had met in the Deep Jungle. Vanessa's voice was a dead ringer for Jane's.

Vanessa, at that moment was sleeping on a pile of cushions that Sora had dragged out for her in the kitchen. The house was starting to get cramped…a few Organization members, Zexion included, had decided to camp out there as well.

Sora wondered why the voices were so similar…Vanessa must have been related to Jane somehow. They did have almost the same hair. Perhaps they were cousins.

* * *

Myed twisted and turned in his sleep once more. He dreamed he was reliving his horrible experience in the Underworld…Cerberus salivated, the Fates cackled, and the Styx swirled with its accursed chartreuse waters. Above it all, he could hear the omnipresent voice of Hades, teasingly calling out, "Hello, little thief…"

"I said HELLO."

Myed's eyelids sprang up. His line of vision met up with the last being he ever wanted to see…again…in the multiverse.

"What, not even going to greet me in return? Well…now how would you put it? That's just plain rude!"

Myed opened his mouth wide to scream, but his lips were clamped shut by a bony blue hand.

"Ah, ah," Hades chided, "no screaming, now."

* * *

Sora was jolted awake by several screams…the screams of his friends…

And the last and loudest belonged to Zexion.

Sora bolted into his living room, Keyblade drawn, to come face-to-face with a horrible sight: all of his houseguests were tied up with thorny black vines and lying on the floor in the form of writhing bundles.

All but one…where was Zexion?

Sora's neck was squeezed tightly, and he was thrown violently against the wall. There, his assailant pressed him to the wood of the wall, not releasing the hold on his neck.

"It seems you two dears have been rejecting the ways of the Chosen One," came the blubbery voice of Ursula the Sea Witch.

Sora realized that what had ahold of him was a black tentacle. But what did she mean by "two"?

He strained to turn his head to the left. There, he could see the body of Ursula in his peripheral vision…and directly in his line of sight, he saw Zexion pressed against the wall next to him, also caught by the neck, trying to speak but only emitting the rasps of a choking man.

"You see," said Ursula, "your little resistance goes against everything the Chosen One stands for. Don't worry; once the rest of the world submits to the Chosen One's rule, they will find that it's all for the best. Oh, and don't worry about all your other little friends…they're all coming with us!"

Sora couldn't believe that Ursula was there, and wanted to ask her how she had crossed the barrier…

But he blacked out first.

"Shall we kill them?" Ursula asked Maleficent.

"No," said Maleficent. "Xehanort specifically required that the resistance is to suffer as much as possible…and I am in agreement. I much prefer that they become shanghaied."

* * *

Sora awoke, groaning, in an unfamiliar room. The bed was hard and uncomfortable, the walls were made of plain wood, and there was no décor about save for some wooden sea chests. Sora looked down at himself. He wore loose white garments and a strange metal armband. He tried to pry the armband off, but it was stuck fast.

Captain Hook entered the room without even knocking. "Time to inform you of your duties," he announced.

"Duties?" Sora yelled, enraged. "What duties? WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FRIENDS?"

"They're fine…for now," said Hook. "The little bilge rats are going about the tasks they've been assigned as we speak…and you'll be joining them." He brought a bucket of water and a dirty bar of soap into the room. "Your particular job will be to polish every mirror on the entire ship until it shines twice as brightly as before. If the soap doesn't work…spit shine them."

Sora leapt up to punch Hook in the face, but was arrested halfway through his course by a shot of the worst pain he had ever dreamed of having. He sank to the floor, trying to clutch the areas of his body that hurt…except EVERYTHING hurt…

He noticed Hook clutching a pendant around his neck. Hook let go of the pendant, and the aching stopped. Sora lay on the floor in submission.

"Did I forget to mention the Cruciatus bands?" he said, gesturing to the armband clamped on Sora's wrist. "All the prisoners have got one. Whenever one of your superiors sees someone doing something that's a no-no, we just touch our pendants like this—" More shooting pain "—and the band does the rest." He let go, giving Sora a rest.

"Now get on those mirrors," Hook ordered. "The ship's gotta be in tip-top shape if we're going to round up all the beings in this multiverse who've defied the Chosen One!"

The mirrors were filthy; it took Sora hours just to scrape the grime off the first one he found in the hall outside his room. In fact, the whole ship was filthy. Sora wondered what the rest of his friends had to be put through…

Ariel came wandering by, a feather duster in her hand, clearing cobwebs from corners.

"Ariel!" Sora called out.

"Sora…" Ariel replied. "What happened?"

Sora told her the whole story.

"Oh, no…" Ariel shook her head.

"She usually steals someone else's voice, to erase all doubt that she isn't Vanessa," Ariel finished. "Don't you remember when she took my voice in order to keep me from breaking the curse?"

"So Vanessa was Ursula the whole time…" Sora just felt like a fool.

"She must have been able to slip through the barrier because none of us thought of her as being in that form," said Ariel, "and that means Kairi couldn't have put a block on Vanessa specifically. Then, once she was in, she used that bond Iago was talking about to call the rest of the villains."

"I'm so sorry," said Sora.

"Didn't I tell you all your being polite would be your downfall?" came a voice from around the corner.

"Axel!" Sora cried.

"Yeah." Axel looked rather green. "Don't make me talk too much. I might lose my lunch anytime. I hate boats."

Sora saw a hammer and a bucket of nails in Axel's hands…he must have been in charge of fixing leaks on the ship.

Donald came around the corner next with a mop and bucket, swabbing the floor. "All of Maleficent's lackeys are here," he informed Sora. "I just had to clean Oogie Boogie's room. It was DISGUSTING!"

Axel's eyes locked on Donald's bucket of water. "Bucket…" he murmured. He tipped it over, emptying out the water, before righting it and vomiting heavily into it.

"HEY!" Donald screamed. "I was using that to CLEAN!"

Axel backed away from the bucket, doubled over. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Now I've gotta find another bucket to put in water to clean out THIS bucket!" Donald cried.

Myed came staggering into the hallway with a toothbrush. "Have to get grout out of bathroom tiles…" he gasped. "Mildew…" His eyes locked onto the bucket. "Bucket!" He rushed over and threw up into the receptacle.

"HEY!" Donald screamed again. "DOUBLE vomit!"

"How can you get seasick?" Axel asked. "You're a water mage!"

"Yeah, well, we're NOT on the sea," Myed explained. "We're flying through interspace. I heard Maleficent say we were charting a course for the Land of Dragons to round up Sora's 'followers'. There's a whole wing of the ship that's sealed off so we can't get in…I bet that's where they're going to keep prisoners."

Donald stared sadly at his contaminated bucket. "Could this get any worse?"

Zexion came barreling around the corner, stopping right in front of the bucket and gripping its rim so he too could empty his stomach into it.

"WAAAAAHAHAHAAAAK!" Donald went completely berserk.

"No…more…no more rocking…" Zexion panted. Sora noticed for the first time that the boat was actually gently rocking as it sailed through interspace.

"I'm just throwing this bucket over the side!" Donald yelled.

"GET BACK TO WORK!" a voice boomed. Sora, Ariel, Donald, Axel, Myed, and Zexion hit the floor, suffering the pain of their Cruciatus Bands.

A monster of a man stepped into view. Sora had never seen him before. "Who…" he managed to spit out, "who are you?"

"I be Davy Jones," said the man, letting go of his pendant. He was quite grotesque in his appearance, tentacles squirming around his face with all its squidlike glory. "And I be your task supervisor."

"Oh, so you're the nanny making sure we get our chores done before we can go out to play," Axel snapped, still clutching his stomach.

Jones was angered by that, but instead of using the Cruciatus Band, he simply approached Axel and stroked his face with his squidlike appendages. "You be a fire elemental, be ye not?" he asked.

Axel shuddered. Jones' very touch was burning his skin…

"That's what I thought." Davy let him go. "Ye won't be talkin' back to me no more."

"Why…how…"Axel sputtered.

"Ye don't mix with the sea," said Jones, "and I am the sea."

"You're the sea?" Myed asked.

"I be the lord of all the waters, and the guardian of the souls lost at sea before Will Turner took the job from me! I be the true master of the Kraken, the most fearsome monster in all the seas! I be the ocean personified!"

"Interesting…" Myed smiled mischievously.

There was a strangled cough from the floor; Zexion was still felled by his seasickness.

"You!" Jones cried, picking Zexion up by the neck. By that point, Zexion was really getting tired of being choked. "Stop yer lollygagging and get back to killing the rats!"

"No lollygagging going on here," Zexion mumbled. "Just gagging."

"Why you…"

Twang.

Jones unexpectedly set Zexion back on the floor. "What the…?" he asked.

Twang.

SMACK!

Jones hit himself in the forehead with his own hand. "WHAT?"

Twang, twang, twang.

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

Myed laughed insanely. He had summoned his Sitar, and was playing it joyfully. "Stop hitting yourself!" he cried. "Stop hitting yourself!"

Sora realized that Myed was CONTROLLING Jones…

"How are you doing this?" Jones growled. He made a snatch for his pendant, but his other hand stopped midway to his neck and decided to dig its finger into his ear instead.

"Well, you're the sea," taunted Myed, "and the sea just so happens to be my element. So there. Now…let's see the literal meaning of 'dance, water, dance'!"

Jones executed an abbreviated version of the Macarena, followed by a pirouette and an arabesque. "I'LL GET YOU!" he screamed, tap-dancing around the corner.

"That takes care of that," said Myed. "You know, I think I've got my interspace-boat legs."

"I haven't," said Zexion, heaving. That time he missed the bucket.

"I'VE GOTTA CLEAN THAT UP, YOU KNOW!" Donald screamed.

"Hang on a second," said Sora. Something had occurred to him. "Myed, you said there was an area blocked off where the prisoners were going to go?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if there weren't prisoners there already, why would we be locked out?"

Myed's mouth dropped open. "You're right…"

"I wonder what world they came from," Ariel thought out loud.

"I know what world they came from," said Sora. "Vanessa…er, Ursula…was using Jane's voice, remember? There are beings from the Deep Jungle locked up down there!"

* * *

Chapter 6.5

"Hi there. I'm Lexaeus, and I have a gripe."

"Huh?" said the author. "How did you get past the fourth wall?"

"Okay, am I mentioned in this story at ALL? Sure, you said my name…twice…but everyone else has had a moment except for me. I want a moment."

"The series isn't even OVER! Why are you yelling at me? There's still time left!"

"Well, I'm making sure I get into this fan fiction one way or another. I know I'm not one of your favorites, so the odds are slim."

"I put SAIX in it…"

"Yeah, well, a lot of people pick him first."

"Can we stop? This is awkward. I mean, I'm the author. I'm not supposed to be in this fan fiction, as much as I wish I could be. Believe me, if I could, I'd so be Demyx's…or Myed's…love interest right now…"

"Oh, Demyx, Demyx, Demyx! I'm sick of hearing about him and all his fangirls! It's like EVERYONE has more fangirls than me! Even Vexen! And he's practically older than Hades! And Hades is IMMORTAL!"

"Ha…you said 'Even Vexen'…pun…come to think of it, I wouldn't mind being his girl either…"

"I have a demand."

"What is it?"

"You have to swear to give me a big heroic moment sometime during this fic, and also proclaim yourself one of my fangirls."

"WHAT? No!"

"You see this tomahawk right here? You see the fourth wall over there?"

"Yeah…"

"I'll break your end of the fourth wall so you don't have control over the fan fiction anymore."

"YOU WOULDN'T!"

"I would."

"But…this one is my masterpiece thus far!"

"You know what else I can do? I can throw rocks at people. I can throw rocks at Myed and Vexen."

"Okay, okay! You'll get a real heroic moment as soon as I can manage it! And…Iamyourfangirlasofthismoment. THERE. I SAID IT. Just leave my side of the fourth wall and my favorite characters ALONE."

"Good. I am satisfied."

"Gosh, for the Silent Hero, you talk too much."


	7. Zero to Silent Hero

7

7: Zero to Silent Hero

When we last left our heroes, BEFORE LEXAEUS INTERRUPTED THE AUTHOR IN PART 6.5, they had been forced onto the crew of Captain Hook's pirate ship and ordered to do chores in the absolute pigsty of a ship. Sora, however, has just realized that the denizens of the Deep Jungle are trapped deep in the bowels of the ship…

"Can you take us to the prisoners' wing?" Sora asked Myed.

"Sure," said Myed, "and if that Jones guy tries to bother us again, I'll make him do—"

"The Soulja Boy dance," Axel offered.

Myed cringed; that was his typical reaction whenever anyone used the words "Soulja Boy" around him. "I was thinking more like the Hustle…"

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Sora cried excitedly. "Let's go!"

Sora, Ariel, Myed, and Axel charged downstairs to find the prisoners. Donald trekked up to the deck in order to ditch his bucket full o' vomit. Zexion tried to stagger along, but found himself unable to move without getting seriously sick.

"You guys go ahead," he called out to no one in particular. "I'll be fine."

* * *

"First thing we have to do," said Sora, "is find Tarzan. They're his friends; he has to see them…"

He was interrupted by a bestial roar. He hurried forward to see what had possibly emitted that noise…

Hiding around a corner, Sora peered into a hallway to see two beings locked in a moment of tension.

Clayton the hunter was clutching his pendant in an iron grip. The unfortunate recipient of the Cruciatus shock was Saïx, who writhed on the floor, foaming at the mouth. Whenever he got close to a wall, he scratched at it, and dug into the wood with his teeth, tearing large chunks from it and spitting them onto the floor. His fists and feet flailed, looking for a target.

"That will teach you to disobey," said Clayton, squeezing the pendant harder.

Axel covered Sora's eyes and led him away from the scene. "You shouldn't see any more of that," he said.

They continued walking down the hallway. "What was up with that?" Sora asked.

"Well, you see, while most things don't faze Saïx, the one thing he hates is pain. For most of us, pain is just something that hurts like heck for a while, but eventually goes away. With Saïx, it seems to strike a lot deeper. In fact, Xemnas once used that against him."

"How so?"

"One day, Saïx decided he was tired of living under Xemnas' rule, and attempted to overthrow him in a battle. Xemnas simply whipped out a knife, and…" Axel traced the shape of an X between his eyes.

"That's where that scar came from?" Sora asked in horror.

"Xemnas said that the initial of the name of Saïx's true master would remain a part of his face forever," Axel continued. "From then on, whenever Saïx tried to go against orders, Xemnas retraced that scar until Saïx followed Xemnas around like a puppy and did his every deed."

* * *

Marluxia had been assigned garbage duty. He was supposed to take all of the garbage out and throw it over the side. He disapproved of the littering, but littering was better than Cruciatus.

Dragging a large garbage bag filled with who-knows-what put there by the slobbish villains, he came across a man curled up into a tight ball on the floor. He recognized the man immediately.

"Zexion?" he called out. "What's wrong?"

Zexion slowly stood to look Marluxia in the eyes. "Seasick," he mustered.

Marluxia put out a hand, directing his magical energy toward Zexion. "Curaga…"

"Won't work," Zexion coughed. "Only works for undoing damage and replenishing missing health…not for minor nature-induced afflictions." He placed a hand over his mouth, trying to avoid spilling a fresh wave of sickness.

Marluxia held the garbage bag, open, out toward Zexion.

"That…supposed to make me feel BETTER?" Zexion scowled.

"No," said Marluxia. "That's supposed to be for you to vomit into. THIS is supposed to make you feel better." He opened his hand, and three cherry blossoms bloomed in his palm. With his other hand, he wafted the scent of the flowers toward Zexion's acute nose.

Zexion breathed in what was to him a heavy perfume of flowers. It made him feel less sick already.

Marluxia grasped Zexion's hand, transferring the flowers to it. "Use them as you need them," he said.

Zexion nodded before retching once more into the garbage bag. After that, he immediately brought the blossoms up to his nose, inhaling their soothing scent.

"I will GET the people who did this to you," said Marluxia. That was a scary thing to hear…when Marluxia wants to GET you, you had better not be within a three world radius of him.

Zexion was flattered. He mumbled something incoherent.

"What was that?"

Zexion lifted the flowers to his nose once more. "I said, glad you're here."

* * *

Tarzan, thankfully, was easy to find…he had been stuck on laundry duty, and Sora had insisted on checking the laundry room because SOMEBODY had to have been assigned that particular task. Once Tarzan joined the party, they pressed onward to the prison wing.

"This is it," said Myed, gesturing to a heavy iron door.

Sora ran up to the door and called to it, "Hello? Can you hear me?"

"Jane!" Tarzan yelled.

"Tarzan?" came an unfamiliar voice. "Tarzan, is that you? Please tell me they haven't gotten you too! Jane seems to be in a state of shock…she can't speak!"

"Her voice was actually taken by an evil witch," said Sora.

"Pardon me," said the voice, "but who are you?"

"I'm Sora," Sora introduced himself, "a friend of Jane and Tarzan's."

"Pleased to meet you," said the voice. "Allow me to introduce myself as Professor Archimedes Q. Porter, Jane's father."

"Nice to meet you!"

"SORA?" came a voice from further back in the room. "Sora, my dear boy, how did you get on this pirate ship?"

"I should ask you the same thing, Merlin!"

"They tied me up in iron chains that resist magic, those devils!"

"I got shanghaied and forced into spit shining the mirrors."

"Okay, enough small talk," said Axel. "How are we gonna get them out of there?"

"Easy," said Sora. "I unlock the door with the Keyblade."

He put his hand out, intending to summon the Keyblade…but none came.

"I don't understand," he said.

"I think the villains took away our weapons," said Myed, "and put them somewhere where we couldn't summon them."

"Then what do I do to save my friends?"

"I have a theory," said Axel, "and I would like to remind you that yes, I can in fact be deep, so Myed can just shut up before he makes any jokes. Now. Myed, most of your power revolves around your Sitar, right?"

"Right…"

"But can you do any water magic without the Sitar?"

"Considerably less than I can do with it, but yes."

"Now, Sora, your power is unlocking stuff. Keep in mind that you're not just any unlocker of stuff, you're the CHOSEN unlocker of stuff…that necklace proved it. Now, if Myed still has a bit of his power without his weapon…"

"Are you serious?" Sora asked.

"All I'm saying is that you try it," Axel replied. "What's the harm?"

Sora placed his palm over the tiny lock of the prisoners' wing. There was an audible click, and the door sprang open.

Professor Porter, Jane, and Terk the gorilla meandered out of the great cell. Jane leapt forward to embrace Tarzan wordlessly.

Sora walked to the back of the room, which was dark but for a shaft of light shining through one porthole that showed a view of the interspace through which they drifted. The room was also completely unfurnished. Merlin was chained up in the back corner, so Sora approached him to place his hand on the padlock of the chains. This had the same effect it had on the door.

"What do you know," Sora said to himself as Merlin shrugged off his chains and got to his feet.

"Good show, boy!" said Merlin.

Sora realized that Merlin was also wearing a Cruciatus band…and he wouldn't have been surprised to see bands on Jane, Porter, and Terk as well.

A loud alarm went off.

"We've been found out!" Ariel cried.

Axel cursed under his breath, and led the others off running.

"YOU!" cried a gravelly voice—Shan-Yu, the leader of the Hun army.

Jane, Tarzan, Porter, Terk, Merlin, Ariel, Sora, and Axel fled for their lives until they reached the stairwell that would take them to the floor above.

Myed, however, tripped on one of his shoelaces that had come loose. He hit the floor hard, and didn't get up as Shan-Yu approached…he knew he had lost. He braced himself, then received the pain of the Cruciatus band.

Sora turned to go get him, but Axel gripped him by the shirt fabric near his shoulder and said, "Keep moving! We'll come back and rescue him when the heat dies down!"

Sora still had doubts about leaving his friend behind…but Axel insisted, and besides, he had to get the Deep Jungle denizens to a safe place.

Shan-Yu casually picked Myed up and threw him into the prisoners' wing, slamming the self-locking door.

"They will not get away," Shan-Yu growled.

* * *

Sora had offered the Deep Jungle citizens and Merlin a place to stay in his chambers, and then gone back to find a mirror before anyone could notice he had abandoned his post.

He picked a mirror in one of the lavatories, where Riku just so happened to be scrubbing toilet bowls.

Sora told the whole tale to Riku, sobbing a little bit as he thought about leaving Myed behind.

"I hate this," said Riku. "So first I'm forced to scrub toilet bowls, then I'm subjected to the Cruciatus band three times for being 'ornery,' and now I find out that Myed's been captured? Why did I ever think working for Maleficent was a GOOD thing? She and her lot have caused us nothing but ruin!"

Shan-Yu burst into the door of the lavatory. First he looked suspiciously at Sora, asking, "Didn't I just see you…?"

"No, Sir," said Sora, hoping to be convincing in his lie. "I've been washing this mirror the whole time."

"Riku," Shan-Yu said, "I have a new order for you. There's a prisoner down in the wing, and he needs to be taught a LESSON. I'm thinking a couple of whips with an iron chain should do the trick. Would you go and fetch one for me?" He twirled the chain of his pendant threateningly, reminding Riku of what would happen if he refused.

"Okay," Riku said eagerly.

"What?" Sora was stunned…he thought Riku would have at least tried to argue. "What are you doing?"

"Getting a chain for the new prisoner," Riku said nonchalantly.

Sora was worried. Was Riku suddenly in favor of this use of violence?

Shan-Yu described the location of a supply closet where Riku might find the chain. "It's marked 'Weapons for All'," he explained.

Riku nodded and took off.

* * *

There were actually two adjacent closets: one marked "Weapons for All" and another marked "Weapons for Us."

Riku could feel a large wave of energy coming from the "Weapons for Us" closet. He tried to open the door, but it was locked. That figured. He pressed his face to the door…he felt a beam of dark energy that was very familiar…

"Soul Eater," he said. "So this is where they're keeping our weapons." He made a mental note of that.

He entered the "Weapons for All" closet. There were just things there like blunt clubs and chains. Riku selected the longest chain he could find. True, he selected it for Myed…but he wasn't going to bring it DIRECTLY to Shan-Yu.

* * *

Light Yagami portalled into the company of Hades.

"Lord Hades," he said, "I have a request."

"Yeah? I don't have all day, so make it quick."

"My Death Note was almost destroyed in the last attempt to give an attack to the Heart of All Worlds. I don't have enough pages left to try again, but Xehanort wants me to. I was wondering if you had extra pages."

"Why would I have pages for the Death Note?"

"You are a god of the dead, are you not…shinigami?"

Hades sighed. He strode over to a desk and pulled out a sheaf of blank paper.

"Knock yourself out, kid," he said, tossing the paper to Yagami. Yagami found it satisfactory, and left.

* * *

Myed curled up in the corner of the cell; head buried in his knees, scared of what punishment was coming to him. If only he hadn't tripped.

He looked up; there was a tapping on the porthole glass. Outside, the end of a chain was flipping about in the atmosphere, knocking against the glass.

Myed pried the window open and looked up to see where the chain was coming from…Riku was dangling it from one floor above.

"Myed!" Riku called. "Grab the chain and climb up!"

Myed nodded ecstatically, overjoyed that his friend had come for him. He started to slither out the window, grabbing ahold of the chain. He gave it a few experimental tugs, then stopped. "Riku?"

"Yeah?"

"Plan sorta backfired."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't exactly fit through this window."

Riku beat his head against the wall. "You've got to be KIDDING me."

"Riku?" Myed whimpered, trying to wiggle free of the window frame that bound him. "What am I supposed to do now?"

"First of all, don't panic," Riku advised. "Just hang on to that chain. I gotcha. I'll see if I can pull you out."

Riku heaved on his end of the chain for all he was worth, but to no avail. If only someone stronger was around…

And as though he could read Riku's thoughts, Lexaeus walked into the room. "What's going on here?"

Riku quickly explained. Lexaeus took the chain from him and gave it a sharp tug.

"YEOWCH!" Myed screamed as he was ripped from the window below. Lexaeus reeled the chain in like a fishing line, and hauled Myed through the window to the upper room, causing another "YEOWCH!"

Lexaeus set Myed down on his feet, then gave his head a couple of rough pats.

"Thanks…" Myed panted.

"How'd you get over here?" Riku asked. "Don't you have chores to do so you don't get hit with Cruciatus?"

"Hercules and I were working in the same hallway," said Lexaeus, "and we got to talking. We discovered something very interesting. You see, Hercules has godlike strength, and I have the essence of rock. Combine that with our muscle density, and there is a considerable decrease in our reaction to pain…"

"In other words…" Myed began.

"…the Cruciatus bands don't affect you!" Riku finished.

"Exactly," said Lexaeus. "At this moment, Hercules is causing a bit of a ruckus upstairs, throwing the villains overboard…"

* * *

"What do you MEAN, the pendants aren't working on him?" Scar howled in rage.

Hercules just picked Scar up and hurled him over the edge of the ship before delivering a punch to Hades that sent him flying in the same direction. He spun around to pick up Jafar and throw him over the side.

"At least this can't get any worse for my dignity," Jafar sighed. Little did he know that he was on a collision course for ANOTHER object that had recently been tossed over the side into interspace…a certain bucket filled with vomit which Donald had been disinclined to clean.

All that remained was Maleficent and Hook, who were in a secluded room, piloting the ship…

* * *

"…and that means my cue should be coming soon." Lexaeus strode out the door.

"Well, he sure showed up at a convenient time," said Myed.

"How much do you wanna bet he bribed the author of the fic to give him a hero moment?" Riku asked.

"I'd be willing to wager all the Aztec gold of Port Royal on that one…"

* * *

"Do you hear that?" Hook asked.

"Don't tell me you hear the ticking again," said Maleficent.

"No…it sounds like the screams of our fellows…"

"Impossible," said Maleficent.

It was possible, however. She found this out the hard way when both she and Hook were clubbed on the back of the head by large rocks.

Lexaeus stood over their unconscious bodies. "Two hero moments in one day," he said, smirking.

* * *

"Over the side?" Sora asked incredulously. "ALL of them?"

"Yeah, yeah!" Myed nodded enthusiastically.

"Come on!" called Riku.

The three of them rushed up to the deck of the ship to see Hercules holding Maleficent's feet while Lexaeus had her shoulders. They swung her back and forth.

"One…"

"Two…"

"THREE!"

Maleficent was flung out into interspace.

"That's the last of 'em!" Hercules said with a smile.

"Great!" said Sora. He suddenly thought of something. "Hercules…was Ursula wearing a shell pendant?"

"Yes. Why?"

"That pendant had Jane Porter's voice in it. Did you happen to get it?"

"No…it went over with the witch. Who's Jane?"

Sora sighed. Well, at least there were worse things than losing one's voice.

"Now all we need is our weapons," said Riku. "Then we can cut these stupid bands off. There's just no way to get in that stupid closet they locked them in…"

"Where?" Hercules asked.

Riku explained the locale of the closet.

* * *

Lexaeus and Hercules punched the door of the "Weapons for Us" closet at the same time. There was no way that the door, enchantment or not, could resist that kind of strength; it collapsed.

"Let's get these weapons back to their rightful owners," said Hercules.

Once that was done, Sora and Riku took over the wheel of the ship.

"So, basically," said Riku, "I'm thinking Lexaeus struck some kind of deal with the author to get mentioned in this chapter so much."

"Author?" said Sora. "Chapter? What are you talking about?"

Riku didn't have the heart to tell Sora…he would save that little revelation for another day.

Mickey burst into the room. "We've got a problem!" he cried.

"Whenever it seems like things are finally going our way…" Riku rolled his eyes.

"I heard that the Enforcers had set this ship on course for the Land of Dragons to pick up more prisoners," Mickey panted, "and that's exactly where we went. Or, rather, that's the place we passed. Unfortunately, at about the time Hercules was causing the ruckus up here, we sailed right over it."

Sora's face went pale. "Are you saying we…"

"I'm saying," said Mickey, "the forecast for the Land of Dragons is partially cloudy with a chance of falling villains."


	8. Chill

8

8: Chill

"We're setting sail back for the Land of Dragons," said Sora. He cranked the steering wheel of the ship sharply, hoping he could get to Mulan's homeland before it was too late.

"Come on," Lexaeus said to Myed. "Let's go tell all the others that the Enforcers are gone, and they're free."

"Let's go get Marly first," said Myed. "He can come with us and use his scythe to take off the others' Cruciatus bands."

"Good thinking."

"Just because I'm a disaster magnet doesn't mean I don't have good ideas."

"I never implied anything of the sort, and your saying so just tells me you're still embarrassed about the whole thing."

Myed turned red and scowled. He was thankful to Lexaeus for saving him, but did it really have to be from such a HUMILIATING situation?

* * *

"All of the Enforcers have been tossed overboard," said Lexaeus.

"What?" said Marluxia. "Who did this?"

"I did."

"Before I could get to them?" Marluxia growled. He plunged his scythe into the wall out of anger.

"HEY!" cried Olette from the other side. "WATCH IT!"

"What did they do to tick YOU off so bad?" Myed asked.

An evil glint sparkled in Marluxia's eye. "Oh, they did nothing to ME…"

The ship rocked with the motion of turning around.

"Where does Sora think he's taking us?" Marluxia asked.

"I dunno," replied Myed.

"He usually knows what he's doing," Lexaeus said confidently.

* * *

Jack Sparrow had been stuck with cooking duty. He spent his term of imprisonment in the galley, wearing the only apron available, which was lime green and edged in ruffles.

Upon the counter in the center of the galley lay several dishes of food, mostly unrecognizable. What was recognizable was the variety of ways in which the food had been ruined—burning, irregular chopping, undercooking, and tasteless food coloring coordination, to name a few.

Jack was working on dessert. "It's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake, they say," he mumbled. "My eye. This has been like war."

And he had the "battle scars" to show for it…that is to say, egg yolk dripping down his pants, a face completely caked in flour, icing on the edges of his hair, and what was hopefully vanilla extract and not blood down the front of the frilly green apron.

Sparrow opened the oven to check on the cake. A rush of black smoke poured out of the oven door and directly into his face.

"BLEEEEECCCCCHHHH!"

The galley door was open a crack, and Lexaeus, Myed, and Marluxia were watching from the other side.

"This is rather amusing," Lexaeus whispered.

"Should we tell him he doesn't have to do the cooking anymore?" Myed whispered back.

Marluxia held up a hand. "Maybe not JUST yet…"

After pulling from the oven a cake that looked more like a Tetris piece than a cylinder, Jack looked around the kitchen for something. "Here we go," he muttered, pulling a bottle of liquor from the cabinet. He took a liberal swig before dousing the cake in it.

Myed clamped his hands over his mouth so Sparrow wouldn't hear him laughing, and he shook uncontrollably from the humor.

* * *

At last, the entire resistance (plus Iago, Professor Porter, Jane Porter, Terk, and Merlin, who might as well be called part of the resistance for a little while) stood on the deck of the pirate ship.

"There is unfortunate news," said Mickey. "We are going to have to stop at the land of dragons in order to prevent the villains from taking it over." He explained about the small disaster involving the coincidental passing over the world just as the villains were being dropped.

"Dang it," said Hayner. "So you mean we got rid of them all just to have to chase them down and fight them AGAIN?"

Tarzan was secretly happy. With the Enforcers was Ursula, and with Ursula was the seashell necklace in which she kept the voice of his beloved Jane.

"We're nearing the world now," said Mickey.

Mulan looked out over the side. She wasn't sure if she was glad or not to be arriving home under the circumstances.

* * *

"So why is this area called 'The Land of Dragons'?" asked the ever-curious Professor Porter.

"Well," said Mulan, "myth says that our land is guarded by ancient dragons who control fate."

"Mulan…" Sora suddenly thought of something. "What would happen if a new dragon ever showed up? An evil one?"

"All of the dragons in the Land of Dragons have control over fate," said Mulan. "We have always trusted the dragons to be pure of heart. Any other way would ruin this entire world."

Sora gulped. "Mulan…Maleficent's other form is a dragon."

"That's not good," said Mulan.

They passed by the camp of the soldiers.

"What's going on?" Mulan asked a random soldier. "Why are we mobilizing for war again?"

"You're the woman that won us the last war, aren't you?" the soldier answered.

"Yes…that's me…"

"Good! You can help us. This time there is a division within China itself. Many of the people refuse to accept the ways of the Chosen One, and are even going so far as to threaten him with violence. We must prove to them that we are in the right."

Mulan and Sora exchanged worried looks.

"I'm rather busy with my own problems at the moment," said Mulan. "Just tell me…is captain Li Shang among you?"

"No," said the man. "He opposes the Chosen One, so we sent him to the Emperor to be imprisoned."

"Thank you," said Mulan. "Now we shall be on our way."

Once they were out of earshot of the camp, Sora and Mulan repeated what they had just heard.

"The Emperor is a follower of Xehanort," said Sora.

"Shang is captured…" Mulan looked as though she was about to cry.

"You know what's weird?" said Riku. "We've heard so much about the 'Chosen One' Xehanort and his ways, but we aren't sure exactly WHAT he enforces."

"I'm not sure I want to find out," Kairi chimed in.

"So where exactly ARE we going?" Larxene asked after a while of walking.

Sora, Mulan, and Mickey looked at each other. "Uhhhh…"

"Oh, DON'T tell me we're just walking around until we find something that looks relevant."

"Okay," said Sora, "I won't tell you."

"That sounds like the kind of plan I'D come up with," said Myed, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Well, if anyone thinks of anything better, just let me know!" Sora growled.

They passed a village, and Mulan was surprised to see a familiar face come rushing at her from its edge.

"Mulan! Fa Mulan!"

Mulan looked at the newcomer with joy. "Ling!"

Mulan and her friend from the army greeted each other with bubbly conversation.

"No one's seen you around in forever! It was like you disappeared off the face of the world!"

"That's because, more or less, I did…"

"Did you hear what happened to Shang?"

"I heard he was captured."

"It's horrible! Now, I know it isn't right to assume, but I think I know you well enough, Mulan…you oppose the so-called Chosen One too, right?"

"Of course."

"So do I." Ling lowered his voice. "I have to keep it hush-hush around here, you know. Don't wanna end up like Shang and Chien-Po did…"

"They got Chien-Po too?"

"You didn't know?" Ling's face fell. "I'm sorry you had to hear that."

"It's all right. It's better that I know the truth. Say, have you seen any suspicious characters about? Specifically…I know this is going to sound crazy…people who fell from the sky?"

"No," said Ling, "I haven't seen anyone fall from the sky, but I did see a green column of fire shoot up from the mountains earlier, which seemed rather suspicious to me."

Sora grabbed Mulan's shoulder and shook it violently. "Maleficent's dragon form breathes green fire!"

"Which mountain?" Mulan asked.

"The one we scaled when Sora was part of the army," said Ling. "Where the Huns burned down the village while we were there."

"Thank you. I can't stay much longer, but I hope to see you and all the others soon."

"Good luck, Mulan!"

* * *

Thus, the resistance found their selves climbing the mountain.

Sora looked back at his rather large party. They all seemed up for the trip…almost. He regretted that they hadn't come through their journey completely injury-free. Jane had lost her voice to Ursula. Myed was limping, still sore from having been yanked through two narrow windows in rapid succession. Zexion was slightly staggering…he hadn't been the same since they had gotten off the ship; all the seasickness couldn't have done him any good. Sora worried for his condition, and hoped he would live to see the end of Xehanort…

Before long, they came upon the fields of snow.

"Ahhhh…" Vexen sighed blissfully. "Snow and ice…"

"You're weird," said Larxene.

Aladdin shivered. "I guess living in a desert didn't prepare me for this."

"This is just like Christmas Town!" said Skellington as he skipped around and around in delicate circles.

Xaldin was hypnotized by the various wind-vortexes that were scattered about the mountain.

"See that?" Sora pointed out, his hand around Kairi's shoulders as they stood on a ledge. "That's the Imperial City down there."

"Awww," said Myed, "Isn't thaaaaat cuuuuuu…"

He trailed off and stopped, unmoving.

"Luxord?" Riku asked. "Did you freeze him with your time powers?"

Luxord laughed. "No, this isn't my fault. You see, Myed is a natural water elemental. Water is his essence. Now, what happens to water when it gets cold?"

"It freezes…" Riku answered.

"Exactly!" put in Vexen. "I used to play this prank on him all the time. I'd hit him with an ice spell when he least expected it…it detained him for at least an hour."

"Is he hurt?" Axel asked.

"No," said Vexen. "Being ice doesn't hurt water. All we have to do is get him back to his normal temperature and he'll thaw out."

"Well, the higher we go up this mountain, the less chance there is of THAT happening," Leon pointed out.

"So do we have to lug this statue all the way up the mountain?" Peter asked.

"Not without wheels," said Axel. He spied an abandoned wagon half sunk in snow and proceeded to unbury it.

"NO!" Sora screamed. "Those wagons are filled with explosives! I should know…I accidentally set off a ton of them during my last journey up here…"

"Fine," said Axel. "If you're going to whine about it." He reached inside the wagon and began to throw the explosives within over his shoulder so they landed in the snow. Once the wagon was empty, Axel picked up the frozen Myed and set him in the wagon. He then walked around to the wagon's front and pulled it forward as though he was some sort of ox.

"You gonna be okay carrying that all the way up the mountain?" Sora asked.

"Yeah," said Axel, but unfortunately it was at that moment he tripped and landed face first in the snow.

"AAAARRGH!" He leapt up screaming while everyone else laughed. His face was covered in snow, and it was burning his essence…

"It's not funny!" he whined. "It burns!"

"Here," said Larxene. "Let me get that off." She stepped closer to Axel and started to wipe the snow off his face.

As she forcefully stroked his cheek over and over, Axel experienced something he never thought a Nobody could actually do: he blushed.

This caused a slight disturbance. When a fire elemental blushes, their body temperature rises drastically. When the heat increased on Axel's face, the rest of the snow sizzled right off in a WHOOSH! of steam.

This sent Xigbar and Luxord into hysterics.

"Well, that proves it!" Luxord cackled. "Our little Axel is crushing on Larxene!"

"He speaks lies," said Axel. "I was just blushing because I was embarrassed to have you wiping the snow off my face like you're my mother."

Larxene backed away, looking rather hurt. "Well," she said, "if that's the way you're going to talk to me, I'm not getting the snow off your face next time."

"Larxene can't take an insult?" Luxord said loudly and sarcastically.

"Looks like our little Larxene likes our little Axel BACK!" Xigbar screamed.

"SHUT UP!" Larxene yelled, and Xigbar was hit by an electric shock that caused his hair to stand straight up and resulted in him staggering about for a moment, muttering, "Dude…"

"Can…we…stop?" Hayner begged. "I can't walk up this mountain any more."

"Okay," said Sora. "We'll take a rest break."

The party hit the ground, either on their knees, sitting, or fully lying down in the cool snow.

"Well, Mickey," said Merlin, "it seems that the multiverse is in quite a pickle here…"

"It makes me glad you showed up," said Mickey. He turned to Sora. "I don't know if you knew this, but Merlin is the official Counselor to the King of Disney Castle…that is to say, me!"

"Ach…" Merlin rubbed an ache on his arm. "I'm afraid my time in that position is growing short, Mickey. Eventually, we all fade away, and let's face it, I'm no spring chicken…"

"I don't want to think about that," said Mickey. "I'm not sure I'm ready to go on without advice."

"Why can't you hire a new Counselor?" Sora asked. "No offense to you, Merlin…"

"None taken," said Merlin. "I know what you meant. Unfortunately, the fates have decreed that the position of the Counselor to the King is a position given by lineage…meaning it must be one of my descendants that takes over the position. Don't worry, Mickey…I came across a prophecy that speaks of the next Counselor. There will, in fact, be one more!"

"You don't say!" The mouse's face brightened.

"The prophecy spoke of the Last Counselor, a descendant of mine who shall produce no heir and therefore be the final one to advise you…and he shall advise you right through the point of the apocalypse of the multiverse."

"I'll live to see that?" Mickey asked.

"We all shall see it," said Merlin. "The multiverse is based on dimensions of space and time…once the apocalypse comes, it shall affect worlds of all times and all spaces. However, Mickey, your role shall be instrumental in the Final Fight before the apocalypse…as will yours, Sora…as will that of the Last Counselor."

"But all of your descendants are dead," Mickey lamented. "There isn't anyone left to fulfill the prophecy."

"Not all of them," Merlin reminded Mickey.

"But THAT one mysteriously disappeared years ago, you told me," Mickey argued back.

"Huh?" Sora was intrigued.

"Well, my family is a powerful one," said Merlin, "and many evil doers have slowly exterminated my kin. All but one…but Ienzo the Twelfth disappeared without a trace years ago."

There was silence.

Mickey broke it: "You. Never. Told. Me. That. Was. His. Name."

"What of it?"

Everyone but Merlin simply turned to look at Zexion.

"What?" Merlin asked. "I don't understand!"

"No," said Zexion, wide-eyed. "It can't be."

"Him?" Merlin asked. "You think he's the one? But his name is Zexion!"

"That's the name he took as a Nobody," Mickey explained. "Before that, he was known as Ienzo."

"It's a fairly common name," said Merlin.

"B-but," Zexion stammered, overwhelmed by the information of the prophecy, "I f-f-fulfill part of the p-prophecy."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a homosexual…so I'll n-n-never take a w-wife…and I won't produce a b-blood heir," Zexion stuttered.

"Such is probably the case with many Ienzos," said Merlin, still skeptical. "I seriously doubt you are the one I seek, lad. If you were, you would have in your possession the spellbook known as the Lexicon that has been passed down through my family for generations…"

Zexion somberly summoned his Lexicon.

Merlin stared at the book in disbelief. "Well," he said, "things have certainly gotten interesting."

After ten awkward minutes in which no one knew what to say, Mickey turned to Zexion.

"Congratulations!" he said.

"For…wh-what?" Zexion stammered.

"You're the next Counselor after Merlin's time comes to an end!" Mickey bubbled. "It is one of the greatest honors in the universe, to be Counselor of Disney Castle!"

"You really think I'm going to be…" Zexion couldn't finish the sentence.

"You'll move into the Castle!" Mickey gushed. "You'll have a better life than you ever did before, in the lap of luxury! You will be part of making the most important decisions in the multiverse, and you shall have many people at your command!"

That was the wrong thing to say.

Zexion stood up forcefully. "Me? Make THE most important decisions in the universe? Right! You'd choose for that position a man who encouraged the experiments that led to his own fall into darkness! A man who spent much of his time conniving in the name of evil! As though I can really make a REMOTELY good decision that will be good for the end of the WHOLE…CONFOUNDED…MULTIVERSE! Well, I'M NOT THE ONE YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!"

Zexion took off running across the snowy plains.

Marluxia got up and pursued him, calling out, "Wait, wait!"

* * *

Marluxia eventually found Zexion curled up behind a large boulder. He nearly missed the small man, as he was dwarfed by the rock he used as his hiding place.

"Zexion?" Marluxia said softly.

"What?" Zexion answered, deadpan.

"Are you all right?"

"Are YOU here to bug me about being this Last Counselor or whatever it is?"

"I'm not here to bother you to do one thing or the other. I'm just concerned for you." Marluxia's voice took on a sharp, angry edge.

Zexion looked up at him. "You're really that worried?"

"Yes, you idiot."

Zexion sighed. "When I was Ienzo, I could handle anything. I knocked out calculus equations in ten seconds flat. I assisted Master Ansem in some of his most delicate experiments. I, as a mere child, made speeches in front of the most distinguished scholars of Radiant Garden! But I'm not Ienzo anymore. I'm Zexion, and I can't handle any more. I've been the most trusted of the Organization…the leader of the resistance…back in the days of Castle Oblivion, I was the cook, the cleaner, when the rest of you neglected to take care of those small duties…I had to watch the rest of the Organization fall apart and keep a cool head…I was in charge of everything, and I really can't say I did the best job. I can't be in charge of anything else, especially anything bigger. I just can't."

"Are you sure?" said Marluxia. "You seem able to handle a whole lot to me."

"Well, I'm NOT," said Zexion, "and you're just going to have to accept that."

"How do you know…"

"I'm just NOT!"

Marluxia noticed Zexion's defensiveness. "Are you not telling me something?"

"No!" Zexion dropped his head into his hands, signifying that the subject was closed.

Marluxia tried to think of something to say to change the mood. "Good God, it's freezing up here, isn't it?"

"I'm fine," said Zexion. "I have a little bit of fire power in me. Since, you know, I am descended from MERLIN and all. But if you're cold, you can have my coat."

Zexion stood, unzipping his coat and handing it to Marluxia without thinking.

The wind caught the bottom of his shirt and blew it up slightly. This didn't get past Marluxia.

"Zexion," he said suspiciously, "take off your shirt."

"I thought we agreed we were taking things slow," snapped Zexion, even though he knew what Marluxia was really getting at.

"Not…THAT, Zexion. Now take it off."

"I don't need everyone worrying about me, Marluxia! There's one thing I CAN take care of, and that's myself!"

"Take it off," said Marluxia, summoning his scythe, "or I'll cut it off."

Zexion sighed and lifted his shirt, showing Marluxia what he wanted to see.

Marluxia gasped, then fell silent. After a while, he whispered, "What happened to you?"

Zexion lowered his shirt. "This is what all those years of being stressed, worried, and handed responsibility have done," he answered somberly.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"All sorts of reasons," said Zexion. "Because I thought you'd be mad that I was suffering. Because I thought you'd go mad with hysterics. Because I thought you'd get all teary on me. Because I thought you'd find me ugly like this and decide I wasn't worth your time."

Marluxia simply reached out and grasped Zexion's shoulders. He drew the smaller Nobody close to his chest, wrapping his arms around him. Zexion put his own arms around the Assassin.

They stood that way for a while.

No words.

Just hugs.

* * *

"You think they're coming back?" Ariel asked.

"I hope so," said Sora. "We can't really go on without them."

"There they are!" Kairi cried, pointing.

Marluxia and Zexion walked back to the resting spot, side by side.

Everyone knew that bringing up the Last Counselor would be a death wish, so Sora stood and said, "Are we ready to move on?"

The rest of the party struggled to their feet with assorted groans. Axel took the front of Myed's wagon once more, and the resistance moved upward.

* * *

"The time has come," said the dragon Maleficent, "to descend upon the Imperial City and twist the threads of fate in our favor."

Shan-Yu bowed. "Good luck, my mistress," he said.

Maleficent spread her wings gracefully and became airborne.

"HEY!" Sora cried, skidding to a stop at this place slightly below the mountain's summit. "Stop right now!"

Maleficent was too far gone to hear, but the rest of the villains turned to face Sora and his party.

"I see," said Jafar. Sora noticed that his hat was rather stained with brown and green splotches. He decided he didn't want to know. "Are you really prepared to challenge us so?"

"Yeah!" said Sora. "We're ready for a fight!"

The rest of the party struck defensive poses.

"I don't know," said Oogie Boogie. "Do you want to put your money where your mouth is?" He turned to face the summit and called out, "OH, HEARRRRRRT-LESSSSS!"

"Ha!" Axel snorted. "You think we'll be deterred by a few little Heartless? Sora's taken on armies of thousands, and he didn't even have all of US with him."

"Um, Axel…" Sora pointed to the summit of the mountain.

A gigantic Darkside was lumbering over the peak.

"So what?" said Axel. "You've taken down Darksides bef—"

A second Darkside joined the first. Then came a third. Then came close to a hundred Darksides, murder shining brightly in their yellow eyes.

A figure descended from the air to alight in front of the herd of Heartless; a figure Sora knew all too well. He was dressed in the black robe of the Neo-Organization, but save for that, he looked exactly as Sora remembered him…

"Sephiroth," Sora whispered.

Shan-Yu grinned mischievously at the resistance. "Have fun," he hissed.

Sephiroth extended a hand to point at Sora and his friends. The Darksides understood his signal—

And the hundreds of Darksides charged down the mountains, led by the One Winged Angel.

"You think we can take them?" Mulan asked Sora.

"Not a chance," Sora blubbered honestly. "Since Myed's out of it, I'll be the one to say…RUN, RUN AWAY!"

Sora's party of heroes barreled down the mountain at breakneck speed with Sephiroth and his Darksides in hot pursuit.

Axel was exhibiting another of the quirks of a fire elemental: when a fire elemental runs at top speed, he or she will actually leave a path of fire behind them in a cartoonish fashion.

As Axel rounded a corner, dragging the wagon behind him, he suddenly heard a hissing noise.

Sora heard it too; he stopped for only a moment to look behind him and figure out what the noise was, costing him precious time in the run from Sephiroth.

Realization dawned on him.

"AXEL!" he screamed, looking at the trail of flames the Flurry had left. "THAT'S WHERE YOU LEFT THE EXPLOSIVES FROM THE WAGON!"

Axel swore loudly, and then cried, "So LET'S GET OUTTA HERE!"

The heroes doubled their speed to get down the mountain before the explosives went off—

Sephiroth led his Darksides on, confident that Sora would soon be struggling in his grasp, but he stopped when he noticed the sparks and tried to make a hasty U-turn with his one inconvenient wing—

The explosion was incredible.


	9. DARKNESS IS LIGHT

9

9: DARKNESS IS LIGHT

"Everybody okay?" Sora asked. A quick roll was taken; no one appeared to be missing from the group.

"Well, that's good," said Mulan. Everyone's eyes turned to the site of the explosion.

Two distinct clouds existed…there was the gray smoke that lingered near the ground with the falling ashes, and there was the mushroom cloud of darkness that was all that remained of the Darksides.

And if the Darksides had gotten blown up, then the man who was in the lead of the pack—

Sora gulped as he noticed a few dark gray feathers floating down to touch the snow. "Urgh."

"Sora!" Kairi cried. "We've got to get to the Imperial City! Maleficent's headed there!"

"Right!" He turned to make his way down the mountain.

* * *

Sephiroth groaned. He felt as though he had been run over by a convoy of lightcycles.

He sat up to meet the rest of the Enforcers on the mountain ledge.

"What happened?" he asked sternly.

"Well," Jafar explained, "the Key Bearer set off a large amount of explosives during your chase, and let's just say you didn't make it."

"Good thing you're an undead genetic experiment," Ursula cackled.

Oogie Boogie held up a glittering needle. "And good thing I was carrying around the needle and thread I use in case I split a seam!"

"Are you saying…" Sephiroth panted. "Are you saying you SEWED ME BACK TOGETHER?"

"I would have thought the brat would be grateful that we saved his life," Hook grumbled.

"Give…me…a mirror," Sephiroth growled.

Shan-Yu handed Sephiroth his sword.

Sephiroth examined his reflection in the blade for a while before screaming, "AAAAAAAARRRRRRGHHH!"

"It's not really that bad," Hades sighed. "Sheesh."

Sephiroth ran his hand over the many lines of stitches that marred his once pristine face. "I look like a denizen of Halloween Town!"

"And what's wrong with that?" Oogie Boogie snapped.

"Fortunately, that WAS the next place we were headed…" Ursula pointed out.

Sephiroth beat his head on the ground repeatedly, vowing he would get revenge against Sora for his maiming.

Sephiroth, as it turned out, was a very vain man.

* * *

At the base of the mountain, Sora pointed to the Imperial City. "It's that way."

The City was a fair distance away from the mountain range.

"MORE walking?" Hayner whined.

"At least you don't have to lug this wagon all the way," Axel panted, tiring of dragging the frozen Myed behind him.

"Here," said Hercules, lifting the wagon with one hand. "I'll take that."

"Why didn't you do that in the first place?" Axel growled.

"Well, after the nasty way you talked to Larxene…"

"And you haven't been hearing the way SHE talks to ME?"

Hercules ignored him and walked on with the wagon.

They were halfway to the Imperial City when Myed finished the sentence he'd started way back up on the mountain: "Cute! Hey…wait a minute…wasn't I just…why am I?...aww, man, I froze again, didn't I?"

"Yeah," said Sora.

"So anyone wanna fill me in on what happened while I was frozen?"

Hercules set the wagon down so Myed could climb out and hear the rendition of the events that had passed while he was unconscious.

"Awwww, MAN!" he cried after hearing the tale of the explosion. "And I MISSED it?"

* * *

They reached the Imperial City at last…and were horrified at what they saw.

Large Neo-Shadows with spears stood outside most of the doors of the buildings. Posters reading DARKNESS IS LIGHT were plastered to every open surface. Off in the distance, the palace was visible…and the dragon Maleficent sat on top of it like a grotesque rooster about to crow for the dawn. She appeared deep in conversation with someone else on the roof, someone too small to see.

"What's this?" Larxene asked, approaching the largest poster she could find. "Hey, guys, listen!"

Sora's brain began twitching with an unfamiliar memory. No, not a memory…someone ELSE'S memory…but why was he getting it? He just had the sudden image of a small blue fairy crying, "Hey! Hey, listen!"

Larxene read aloud from the poster: "It has been given through divine power to the Chosen One Xehanort, the knowledge that the darkness is merely a method of covering the light. Within the darkness, the brightest light shines."

"That actually kind of makes sense," said Riku.

"I'm not finished," Larxene snapped. "Therefore, those who give their hearts over to the darkness will possess the ultimate light, and therefore the ultimate wisdom. When those appointed by the Chosen One visit town, give your heart over to them to receive the ultimate light and wisdom…or go with the Enforcers to an uncertain fate."

"He's making them lose themselves to darkness," Sora breathed. "But darkness corrupts so easily…"

"Not just that," said Myed. "I kind of get the feeling that somehow, whoever gives themselves up to the darkness will be under Xehanort's CONTROL…I can't explain it, but it makes sense."

"So those Heartless outside the doors—" Sora started.

Kairi finished for him. "They used to be the people of this village."

"And what about the Nobodies?" Myed asked.

Axel snapped his fingers. "I KNEW something was familiar about that soldier that tried to get Mulan to join the wrong side!"

"What do you mean?" Mulan asked.

"You want to know what happened to the Nobodies?" quipped Axel. "Look no further than that camp of soldiers we passed."

"That man was a Nobody!" Goofy put the pieces together.

"Well," said Sora, "this just means we have to get to Maleficent faster! Come on, let's go!"

* * *

The doors of the palace were locked. Mulan was about to round up some sashes and begin climbing up the pillars as she had done before, but Lexaeus cut her off by punching a large hole in the doors.

As the resistance poured into the spacious grand hall of the palace, Zexion paused to sniff the air.

"The person from the ceiling," he said. "He's coming down here…"

The identity of Maleficent's confidante was revealed. The Emperor of China strode into the room, yellow robe flowing. In his left hand was a scepter bearing seven jewels, one for each color of the rainbow.

"Mulan, Mulan," he said, shaking his head. "I cannot believe you would betray our country so."

"I haven't betrayed anything!" Mulan yelled. "It's you who betrayed us all!"

The Emperor narrowed his eyes…and they glowed.

The memories of that other person came flooding back to Sora…he remembered…a beautifully tragic princess, possessed by a being of shadows…her eyes were yellow, and she levitated…she fired yellow orbs of crackling light at him, but he used his silver sword, imbued with the power of the sun, to send them back at the princess who was truly a puppet…

And then he knew.

Sora pushed past Mulan to the front of the crowd. "That's not the Emperor!" he cried. "The true Emperor would never betray his country like this!"

"Then who is it?" Mulan whispered.

"One of the Neo-Organization," said Sora. He wasn't sure how he knew the answer, and yet he knew the answer: "Ganondorf."

"Very observant," said Ganondorf from inside the Emperor's body. He levitated several feet off the ground, throwing his hands up into the air to create a ball of harmful light to launch at Sora—

"No!" Sora cried as the light hurtled toward him. "I know this trick!" He used his Keyblade to deflect the light ball. Ganondorf caught it and hurled it again. Sora batted it back. They went about this deadly game of tennis until Ganondorf's grip slipped. The light hit him and caused him to go unconscious.

"Is the Emperor all right?" Mulan asked.

"I don't know!" Sora cried. "We don't have time for that now!" He started to run away, but was stopped…something in the room was calling to him…

He bent over Ganondorf's scepter. "They're summon gems!" he realized, running his fingers over the seven jewels.  
"One of them might be Shang…" Mulan trailed off.

"We'll take this along," said Sora. "Now let's hurry up!"

* * *

On the roof of the palace, Maleficent was deftly moving her claws between the warp and weft of the threads of fate.

"Soon," she told herself. "Soon this whole world shall be thrust into darkness, and we need not worry about persuading the locals to give their hearts…"

"Not if we have anything to say about it!"

Maleficent whipped her head around to see Sora and a small army coming up behind her.

"Well, well," she murmured. "The Key Bearer and his friends. What an unwelcome surprise."

"You won't get away with this, Maleficent!" Sora cried. He drew his blade. The rest of the party drew their weapons as well.

"We shall see," Maleficent cackled.

However, the appearance of confidence was all she had on her side. She was vastly outnumbered and overpowered. The battle was over just a moment after it had begun, and she thought it best to preserve her own life. She gave up and winged away.

"I shall return!" she threatened.

"Quick!" Kairi cried. "Sora! Riku! Mickey! Seal the threads!"

The three lifted their Keyblades and pointed them at the area where Maleficent had been working. Three beams of light shot up and sealed off the lines of fate to all but the benevolent dragons of Mulan's world.

"Good work," came a voice from behind them.

Sora whirled about, brandishing his Keyblade at the Emperor, who had just appeared.

The Emperor raised his hand, panicked. "The King of Shadows has left me," he assured Sora.

Kairi approached the Emperor, placing her hand on his shoulders in order to sense whether he had the true memories of the Emperor or those of Ganondorf. "It's all right," she announced. "Ganondorf must have left with Maleficent."

"Well," said the Emperor, "it seems that you have saved us yet again…Sora and Mulan."

"Don't give us all the credit," said Sora. "We had a LOT of help."

* * *

They tried to leave the Imperial City quickly so they didn't have to look at all the Heartless around. The Emperor promised he would take care of the problem of the citizens who had given over to darkness. Sora only hoped that he could stand against all those who rallied in favor of Xehanort.

Mulan kept fingering the scepter. "What do we do about this?" she asked.

"Well…" Sora thought it over. "Wasn't Mushu's true form a statue? Who brought him to life?"

"The spirits of my ancestors…"

"Then let's go see your ancestors!"

"SORA!" Mulan was horrified. "No human has ever seen one of the spirits! To look upon them would be extremely disrespectful!"

"You don't think they'd make an exception in an emergency?"

Mulan sighed. "All right. We'll try it. But if I get in trouble, I'm blaming YOU."

* * *

Hayner whined about blisters during the whole journey to Mulan's family farm. Hercules refused to carry him.

"I'll go in," said Mulan, stopping outside the temple of her ancestors. "Anyone else who's not of the Fa family will just anger them."

"Fine," said Sora.

Mulan entered the temple reverently. She lit a stick of incense and placed it in a golden burner that had once been dragon-shaped but now bore the semblance of a small cricket.

"Ancestors," she said, laying the scepter in front of the largest gravestone. "I apologize for being so impudent as to call on your greatness, but it is an hour of need. Please, please restore these poor people to their former forms."

At first, it seemed as though Mulan's efforts were in vain. She closed her eyes in disappointment.

She then heard a voice say, "No human has ever laid eyes on us before."

Mulan opened her eyes. A bearded ghost hovered over her, sitting cross-legged on the largest gravestone.

"I am very sorry…"

"There is no need to apologize. Consider it a one-time favor." The ancestor waved his hand over the scepter, and then faded away.

The seven gems glowed brightly, then disappeared, leaving the scepter as a naked rod of gold. Seven people appeared in all their glory in front of Mulan, who let out a breath of relief.

"Mother," she said, "father. Grandmother."

"Mulan!" cried Fa Zhou, stepping forward to embrace his daughter. "How did you avoid getting captured?"

"It was the luck of this here cricket!" cried Mulan's grandmother, tapping the golden burner.

"We're so glad you're safe…" sighed Fa Li.

Mulan turned her attentions to the next three people.

"Well, they got me too," Ling sighed. "Knew they would eventually."

"Let me at 'em!" Yao cried. "I'll give them a knuckle sandwich they'll be tasting for months!"

"Yao," said Chien Po.

"No! I will NOT meditate this time!" Yao cried.

"I'm just glad you're all right," said Mulan.

She turned to the final person. "Shang," she greeted.

"Mulan." The tall, handsome general smiled at her warmly.

"I was so worried when I heard you'd been captured…"

"Thank you." He placed a hand on either side of her face. "You have saved us all."

"I couldn't have done it," said Mulan, "if I hadn't trained with the best."

Outside the temple, Axel was contemplating doing something that would have amounted to his new most awkward moment in the Organization: apologizing.

He cleared his throat. "So, Larxene…"

"What?" the lightning elemental snapped. "Make this worth my time."

"Well, it occurred to me that I was rather RUDE to you up on the mountain…"

"So?"

"And I'm…" it took him a while to get the word out. "…sorry."

Larxene's eyes widened. She immediately shook it off. "Well, that was a waste of my time. I'd already forgiven you."

Axel took that as a good sign, and was satisfied.

Mulan, her family, and her soldier friends left the temple.

"So it worked!" cried Sora.

"Yes," said Mulan.

Sora looked at those who had been released from the Summon Gems. "Would you like to come with us on our journey?"

"No thanks," said Shang. "Someone's got to stay here and make sure the world doesn't fall to pieces."

"Just be careful," said Mulan.

"I will," Shang promised.

Zexion sniffed the air. "I sense…something…odd," he said. "There's an ancient form of darkness tucked back around that building…if I didn't know better, I'd say it was a group of…but that can't be right…"

"Let's go check it out," said Sora.

On the way to the far end of the farm, Sora told Merlin about his strange memories.

"My boy!" Merlin cried. "Do you realize what this means?"

"No…"

"Those were the memories of the man once known as the Hero of Time! He must have been one of your ancestors!"

"Really?"

"He was known as Link. The final memory you experienced was that of his battle of the Shadow King Ganondorf once he had possessed the princess Zelda."

"Zelda?" Saïx was suddenly interested.

"Do you remember something about Zelda?" Sora asked.

"No…" said Saïx, but his eyes narrowed. The revenge he wanted…he didn't want revenge ON Princess Zelda, but he knew that Zelda had something to do with the reason he wanted revenge…

"If anything ensures that you are the true Chosen One," said Merlin, "it is this!"

They all turned the corner to see what was behind the building.

Saïx's face was suddenly split by a large grin. "No way," he muttered. Then he yelled, "NO WAY!"

Parked behind the building were several black carriages, each with a wisp of light reined in at the front in place of a horse.

"What are they?" Sora asked.

"One of the most primitive forms of travel utilized by those of the Darkness," said Zexion. "I didn't believe they had them here…but they did…the Enforcers must have called them up as an escape method, since we took their ship. These are known as Doom Buggies."

"A real DOOM BUGGY!" Saïx cried. He ran around the Buggies, admiring each one with a little bit of drool.

"What's up with him?" said Myed. "Did he have caffeine while I was frozen? Or sugar? Or did he catch a bad case of OOC?"

"I've always wanted to ride a real Doom Buggy…" Saïx shuddered with excitement.

"It seems as though each villain summoned one all to themselves," Zexion mused. "However, if we share, we should all be able to fit in the Buggies and take them for a ride…besides, it would rid the villains of their escape vehicle."

"They'd still have the ship," Riku pointed out.

Zexion smiled. "But they don't KNOW where we parked the ship. It will take them a while to find it."

"I CALL SHOTGUN!" cried Saïx.

"It's like he's a little girl who just got a pony," Axel whispered to Myed.

"Let's go," said Zexion, and they all boarded the Buggies…Saïx with a cute little hop and a "Whee!"

Marluxia was the last to board. As he lifted a foot to climb into the Buggy that also contained Zexion, he heard a scream from around the corner of the building. He turned to face Ursula.

"They're taking our Buggies!" she cried.

In a rage, Marluxia summoned his scythe. He swung it at Ursula, bringing the blade neatly down between her neck and the cord of her necklace. The shell pendant crashed to the ground, shattering—

"I can speak!" cried Jane.

"I daresay you're getting good at that," Zexion congratulated.

Marluxia frowned. "I was actually aiming for her neck that time."

They heard the footsteps of the other Enforcers hurrying to the spot—

"Come on!" cried Zexion. He grasped Marluxia's hand, pulling him into the Buggy.

The Buggies took off into the sky, and then vanished into interspace. The last sound Ursula heard before her precious escape vehicle disappeared into the sky was that of a Luna Diviner squealing, "WOOHOO! FASTER!"

* * *

A/N: For more information on Isa and Zelda, refer to "Surrender or Die."


	10. Corrupted Apprentice

10

10: Corrupted Apprentice

Sora looked out the window of his Doom Buggy, trying to spy the next world he was headed for. The Buggies seemed to be on autopilot; there was no way of controlling where they were going.

Two Buggies over, Jane Porter was using her newly found voice to complain about how rudely she had been kidnapped.

"Then she took my voice and shoved it into her necklace," Jane explained. "I was very put off by this, and I tried to make a grab for the necklace, but she hit me on the side of my head and knocked me unconscious!"

One Buggy behind, Axel stared out the window, wondering what truly HAD become of the Nobodies' hearts…for he had blushed in the last world. BLUSHED. That should simply not have been possible.

* * *

Jack Skellington gasped with delight as he recognized the world the Buggies were about to alight upon.

When they finally did touch the cobblestone of a back alley, he leapt out with the energy of a spring, yelling, "It's home!"

"So THIS is Halloween Town," said Riku, clambering out after him.

"Donald," said Goofy, "you've got a lot of clothes to change to help everyone fit in with this world!"

"Mine first, please," growled Xaldin.

Donald surveyed Xaldin's cloak, which was covered with some sort of sludge. "What happened?" he asked, immediately about to wish he hadn't.

"I rode all the way over with Zexion," explained Xaldin, "and no one warned me he gets interspace-sick…"

Zexion wobbled out of his Buggy, looking rather embarrassed with his hand clamped over his mouth. Marluxia had a hand on his back, attempting to comfort him, but the look on the Schemer's face suggested it wasn't working.

Axel wrinkled his nose. "Too. Much. Information."

Donald got right to work designing new outfits for the party. "There we go!" he cried in triumph.

Iago swiveled his head around to look at his new black feathers. "I look like Maleficent's raven."

"Come on!" yelled Skellington, running ahead. "Let's go and see how things are doing!"

"I sure hope Xehanort's influence hasn't gotten here…" Mickey thought out loud.

* * *

Hidden in the shadows, barely visible, was the being that was practically the forgotten Enforcer. He had no idea why he was there, except that the other, more powerful Enforcers needed backup in case something went wrong in the Land of Dragons and they couldn't arrive on schedule.

He picked absentmindedly at the wall behind him. He was capable of so much more than this…those idiots just hadn't realized his true potential.

His cell phone rang. He reached down into his bag—which would remain hidden in a nearby bush—to answer it.

"Omega," said the voice of Maleficent as she named the lesser Enforcer by his code name. "This is Alpha."

"What now, Maleficent?"

"It seems we were wise in placing you at the strategic location. Our Doom Buggies have been hijacked, and we cannot find the ship we had intended to use to travel to Halloween Town originally."

"So you want me to do the dirty work now?" He sounded annoyed, but was truly glad that he could finally see some action.

"Not to take prisoners. Goodness knows you can't do that on your own. Just make sure that the plan for Halloween goes as we set it."

"You had better come through and give me my share when this is all over."

"Worry not, Omega. That shall happen."

"It better."

"We are counting on you, Omega. We are sure you will be able to do well, as you blend in with the citizens of that world…"

"You forget, Maleficent. With my powers, I'd say I BLEND IN mostly anywhere."

"Do what you must, Omega."

"Good luck finding that big old hard-to-miss ship you lost, Maleficent," the Enforcer quipped before hanging up.

* * *

"Jack! Jack!" The Mayor rushed to his friend, his happy face turned to the front. "You would not believe our good fortune!"

"What is it?" Skellington asked.

"Do you remember the Heartless Halloween we tried to pull off last year?"

"Yes…it failed spectacularly."

"Well, it won't this year! We have found a way to engineer the Heartless so they shall actually work FOR us!"

Skellington's expression showed worry. "Who gave you this idea?"

"Well, the idea came from a bright young intern who now works at City Hall…I can't remember his name at the moment…but we're getting our funding from the generous Chosen One Xehanort! He only wants the best for our Halloween!"

"I doubt that…" murmured Skellington. "Are you sure this isn't going to backfire?"

"Of course I'm sure!" gushed the Mayor. "I should know—I am an elected official! Besides, Xehanort is the Chosen One! He wouldn't steer Halloween Town wrong!"

"I'm not so sure of that," said Skellington. "If I told you to abandon the experiment now, would you listen?"

"Jack, Jack, Jack." The Mayor reached up to put a hand on Skellington's shoulder, but gave up when he realized he was too short to do so. "Trust me. This won't go wrong. Besides, the new intern knows what he's talking about. He's a bright one, that intern…"

A shape in black breezed past, making headway for the graveyard.

"My heart theory is getting proven more and more every minute," Axel mused.

"Yeah," said Myed. "You keep saying INSIGHTFUL stuff. And you're getting THEORIES. This is proof that your other was a geek!"

"No," said Axel. "Did you not notice who just left us and ran for the graveyard?"

Myed looked around. "Zexion's missing…again. How many times can that man run off?"

"Who's gonna go get him this time?" said Axel.

Before Marluxia could put up his hand, it was Mickey who said, "I HAVE to be the one. I know why he ran away…I was there to witness it."

"What are you talking about?" asked Sora.

"He just heard his own story," explained Mickey.

* * *

The silver-haired man was dressed as the Phantom of the Opera; the sweeping cape, enigmatic half-mask, and literary allusion fit his aura. This melancholy Phantom was curled up on the ground, leaning against a gravestone.

"Heya, pal," Mickey said as he approached.

Zexion didn't answer, turning so that all Mickey could see of his face was the part obscured by silver hair.

"I know what that sounded like back there," Mickey tried.

"That's what Ansem said about me," said Zexion. "He said I was the brightest of his apprentices. He said he trusted me. I bade him go further with our dangerous experiments. He was wary, but he did it anyway. Because I said so. Because he trusted me. And look where that got us all."

"Aw, we all make mistakes, Zexion," said Mickey.

"You always did have such a naïve view of the worlds," Zexion muttered. "Everything's rainbows and sunshine and forgiveness with you. Well, some things are unforgiveable."

"But Zexion," said Mickey, "don't you see what you have here? You have a chance to stop your own story from happening again!"

This caught Zexion's interest. He finally swiveled his head so his visible eye—framed by the Phantom mask—met Mickey's sympathetic smile. "Go on."

"Maybe if you tell the mayor your story, he'll realize he's makin' a mistake!"

Zexion rose. "Worth a shot. But I'm not hopeful, Mickey."

* * *

Skellington and the Mayor were still arguing when the two came back.

"What'd we miss?" Mickey asked.

"Not much," said Sora. "We're kind of waiting for them to come to a conclusion already."

"Myed's bored again," said Axel, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to where Myed was charming the green water…or whatever it was…out of the town square fountain and making it twist into complicated and beautiful designs.

"Where'd Saïx go?"

"Sitting in a Doom Buggy, pretending to flick a whip at the light spirit and yelling 'Giddy up!'"

"Okay then."

"If I may so intrude…" Zexion walked between Skellington and the Mayor. "Mr. Mayor, sir, you fail to see the powerful influence that an underling can project upon his elders. By succumbing to his opinion instead of your own, you fail to see his naïveté, and may in fact be leading yourself to…" He gulped "…destruction."

"Truly?" said the Mayor. "Well, I shall discuss the matter with him again…warn him not to get cocky…but until I see the harm, I'm going along with this. We may have the best Halloween yet, with the Heartless on our side!"

"The Heartless take no one's side," said Zexion. "Just promise me that at the first sign of corruption, you shall cease the plans."

"All right," the Mayor sighed. "But truly, I see nothing wrong!"

"That's okay," Sora suddenly said. "Just go back to working on it. We'll just walk around for a while and admire the town."

Everyone else wondered what the heck Sora was doing.

The Mayor trotted off gleefully.

"What was that for?" Axel rounded on Sora.

"Well, we weren't getting anywhere with HIM," said Sora, "so I thought we should go to see Dr. Finkelstein. He's the only one around here capable of doing experiments on Heartless, right? So maybe we'd have an easier time getting him to stop it than we would the Mayor!"

"Good thinking, Sora!" cried Jack. "Let's go!"

"All of us?" Goofy asked. "I don't think we can all fit in the Doctor's lab."

"Then just Sora and Mickey and Jack should go," said Axel. "The rest of us will go rest in the Doom Buggies…that is, if we can get Myed away from the 'pretty water'…"

"Hey!" cried Donald. "We're a part of Sora's team!" He motioned to himself and Goofy. "We're not getting left behind!"

"Okay," said Sora. "There'll be room for you two—"

"And us too," insisted Riku, pointing to himself and Kairi.

"All right—"

"And I refuse to be left behind," said Zexion. "I have to see this through."

Sora didn't really know what he meant, but he said "Okay" anyway. "That's probably all we can take," he said to the others.

"Roger, mate," said Sparrow, and he led the rest of the party back to the Doom Buggies while Sora, Mickey, Skellington, Riku, Kairi, Donald, Goofy, and Zexion headed for Dr. Finkelstein's laboratory.

* * *

"…and so they thought I might keep a watch on you," said the Mayor, "to make sure you weren't corrupt. But we all know that's ridiculous, right?"

"Of course," said the new intern. "Now, there is another idea that has been…well…itching in my brain…"

"Do tell!" The Mayor was always excited to hear his intern's new, brilliant ideas.

"Well, I seem to hear around town that you once tried to own Christmas as well."

"It would have been a great enterprise," said the Mayor, "but it failed miserably, and Jack forbade us from ever doing it again."

"But you wanted to own Christmas?"

"Oh, yes! It would be wonderful if Halloween could extend to Christmas! Or better yet, every holiday! Or better yet, ALL YEAR!"

The lust for power in the Mayor's heart translated into great potential for the intern. He smiled. "That's exactly what I was hoping you would say. And with the help of the Heartless, we can do that."

The intern's grin was wide and toothy, encouraging the Mayor. However, hidden behind the grin was a secret desire to eventually bring down this Mayor…this elected official who was too dense to notice when evil, that is to say the Enforcer Omega, was standing right in front of him.

* * *

"What is it?" Finkelstein croaked, wheeling over to the door. "Lock! Shock! Barrel! If this is another one of your pranks where you knock on the door and then bombard me with eggs and toilet paper, I will serve you in a Frog's Breath stew!"

Finkelstein was relieved to see Jack at the door instead of the little pranksters. "Ahhh, Jack," he rasped. "Good to see you. Come, come inside, and bring your friends."

Once they were all seated around a table that Finkelstein normally used to dissect his various experiments but today used to serve tea, the Doctor asked, "So what brings you to my humble laboratory?"

"Well," said Sora, "we heard about the plans for the new Heartless Halloween, and we were wondering if…"

He didn't get a chance to finish the sentence. Finkelstein slammed his delicate fist on the table. "Blast that Mayor!" he cried. "Carrying on what should be my work without me!"

"What?" Riku was stunned, as were the rest of the beings at the table. "Are you saying you're not in charge of the Heartless?"

"Good heavens, no!" cried Finkelstein. "Last time I tried to work with one of those things, it nearly ripped out the remaining half of my brain! No, the Mayor decided to take the experiment into his own hands, even though I am the officially appointed Mad Scientist of Halloween Town! The only one! The Mayor has no right!" Finkelstein paused to think. "Now, if he OFFERED me a chance to work WITH him on the Heartless project, that might be a different story…"

The others downed the rest of their tea. "Thank you," said Jack, "but we really must be going."

* * *

Outside, the eight gathered in the street.

"Well," said Kairi, "it looks like we're back to the Mayor again."

"But he won't listen!" said Riku.

"To anyone but his intern, anyway," said Skellington.

"Maybe we can convince HIM that the Heartless project is wrong!" said Sora. "Come on, it's worth a try!"

"It's amazing, the power an assistant can have over his master," mused Mickey. "Zexion knows that all too well."

He expected Zexion to respond, but the Phantom remained silent, a dumbfounded look on his face.

"What?" Sora asked.

Zexion swayed in place as though he was struggling against something. His hands groped about his shoulders, trying to find something that didn't appear to be there.

"Um…what's going on with him?" said Riku, slightly concerned for his benefactor of licorice.

The Lexicon appeared and hovered in front of Zexion's face. It then flew to the area over his left shoulder and hit something unseen with a CRACK! There was a sound as though a body had been flung across the alley.

Zexion turned to glare at the spot where the noise had ended. "I am so…SICK…of being STRANGLED!"

A very odd sound—like a giant mouse was scrabbling its way across the ground, or maybe a lizard—came from the spot. Donald aimed his staff at the area where the noise came from and yelled, "THUNDER!"

A large lightning bolt came down and struck the ground, but it missed. There was a yelp from the spot, followed by the sound of the skittering changing directions and moving out of earshot.

"What was THAT?" Riku asked, bewildered.

"Something invisible snuck up behind me, covered my mouth, and started strangling me!" Zexion screeched.

"INVISIBLE?" Sora cried.

"Well, that's not good!" Goofy observed.

"No duh, Captain Obvious," said Riku.

"We better get to the Mayor's," said Mickey, "the sooner the better!"

* * *

A knock came at the Mayor's door. "I better answer that!" the Mayor cried.

"NO!" replied the intern, just coming in from a stroll around the town during which he had gotten some "fresh air". "I mean…this is a delicate process! We wouldn't want it interrupted!"

"But what if it's Jack?" said the Mayor. "If he's finally come around, he could be a huge help…"

"Help…" The Enforcer Omega smiled. He DID need subjects for the machine… "All right. Let him in. But bring him down to the basement when you do. I want to show him the project."

* * *

"Jack!" the Mayor cried. "And Sora! And Donald and Goofy! And three people I don't recognize! What a welcome surprise!"

"Mr. Mayor," said Sora, "we wanted to talk to you again about the Heartless."

"Oh, and speaking of the Heartless," said the Mayor, "you simply must come down to the basement and see how the project is coming along!"

"I don't think you understand…" Sora tried to say, but the Mayor was already heading down the stairs.

"Hey!" cried Zexion. "You need to listen to us!" He chased after the Mayor, and the others had no choice but to follow.

The Mayor led the crowd down into a dark, damp cellar. Steam hissed from pipes on the walls. Rats crawled about the ceiling.

"I don't like the looks of this," said Sora.

"Really?" said Jack. "I love what he's done with the place!"

When the group reached the bottom of the stairs, they stopped, stunned at the sight before them. A very strange machine was placed before them, taking up most of the basement. It looked like a great vacuum cleaner turned on its side with extra pipes added to make it creepier. Attached to the end was a cluster of yellow canisters.

"Ah, and here's the young prodigy now!" the Mayor announced, as a tall and lizardlike being slithered out from behind the machine. "Allow me to introduce my incredibly talented apprentice: Randall Boggs!"

"Pleasure to meet you," huffed the impatient Randall.

Zexion winced from hearing the word "apprentice". He had no doubt that Randall was bad news.

"Randall," ordered the Mayor, "go be a dear and fetch our guests some scorpion pastries, will you?"

"Of course," Randall sighed, sounding more than a little reluctant.

"He seems…" Sora began.

"Like trouble," finished Zexion. "For the last time, stop listening to him. This can only end in your own ruin!"

"Oh, what's the worst that could happen?" the Mayor asked.

As if to answer his question, a great spiderweb suddenly rose from the floor like a booby-trap net, creating a swinging sac in which Sora, Jack, Donald, Goofy, Kairi, Riku, Zexion, and Mickey found themselves trapped.

"HEY!" cried Mickey. "What's the big idea?"

"Well, the Scream Extractor isn't going to power itself," said a voice from the corner, where a lever was down as though it had just been pulled…but no one was there.

"Nobody's there," said Goofy.

"Actually," said Kairi, "the Nobody's in the net with us."

"Oh, ha ha ha," groaned Zexion. "As though I haven't heard that one a million times."

"A Scream Extractor?" the Mayor said. "So THAT'S what it is!"

"You IDIOT!" cried Zexion. "You let him build it, and you didn't even know what it WAS? Did you not listen to ANY of my warnings?"

Randall suddenly materialized in the corner near the lever.

"He turns invisible…" muttered Mickey. "I think we know the identity of our unknown attacker!"

"Just so you know," Randall quipped, "the duck has really bad aim."

"So why, again, have you tied up our guests?" asked the Mayor, his sad face turning to the front.

"The Scream Extractor needs living subjects to take the screams from," Randall explained. "The screams are made of pure fear, and fear is the best way to power the most efficient Heartless. In no time, we'll have enough Heartless to conquer all of the Holiday worlds!"

"But will the subjects of the Scream Extractor be okay?" the Mayor asked.

"Not entirely," Randall explained. "They may suffer such side effects as permanent trauma or even loss of heart…"

Sora's eyes widened. He knew that one of Randall's prisoners couldn't possibly handle "permanent trauma" without completely fading away. Not to mention, he didn't want to know what horrors would befall Mickey, Donald, and Goofy if they lost their hearts…or what horrors would befall all of them if Riku, a wielder of the darkness, happened to lose his heart, the force that guided him toward what was right…

"Randall," said the Mayor, "I'm starting to have second thoughts."

"But this will be the first step to everything you ever wanted," said Randall. "Halloween all year round."

"Halloween all year round!" Jack gasped. "But that can't happen! Halloween is supposed to be only ONE day a year! That's what makes it special!"

"I didn't really think people had to get hurt," said the Mayor.

"You said you were willing to do anything!"

"Except hurt people. I didn't really think about that because we're not used to doing it here in Halloween Town."

"You picked a fine time to develop a conscience," Randall growled. Suddenly he was gone.

"Portalled away?" Goofy asked.

"No," Riku whispered in horror. "Invisible."

The Mayor looked from left to right, frightened. He had no idea where the attack was going to come from.

It came from above. A large yellow canister dropped from the ceiling, hitting the Mayor on the head and knocking him out cold. His oddly shaped body hit the ground.

"There's no way he could have survived that…" Kairi mumbled.

"Kairi," assured Sora, "everyone here's dead already. He can't die."

"I forgot about that," said Randall. "Hm…the one who would REALLY know how to deal with these freaks is Hades…he handles the undead all the time…perhaps they really did send the wrong guy for this."

That sent Sora into hysterical laughter.

Randall whirled to glare at him. "WHAT?"

"Sent…the wrong guy…" Sora spit out between guffaws. "That catchphrase is already taken!"

Zexion got it and did something very out of character: he giggled. Just a little bit.

"Enjoy your laughter, then," Randall huffed, turning his attentions back to the machine. "You only have a few minutes left before I feed you to the Extractor anyway…"

Randall suddenly leaned backward, clutching his spine in pain from where the Keyblade had been launched at it. He turned to see all of the prisoners standing behind him, Sora catching the Keyblade which had flown back to him like a boomerang.

"Just some advice," said Riku. "When you're dealing with warriors who can summon their blades from thin air, a net really isn't going to work on them."

"It was a SPIDER WEB," corrected Donald for no reason.

"Idiots," said Randall. He slipped into his invisible form.

"Where'd he go?" Jack asked. He found out the answer immediately; a strong blow from behind reduced him to a pile of bones which went flying in all directions.

"JACK!" Sora cried.

"Don't worry about me!" Jack's skull called out from the corner. "I'll put myself back together! Just get that monster!"

Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Mickey drew their Keyblades. Donald charged his staff with lightning while Goofy twirled his shield. Zexion clutched the all-powerful Lexicon in his right hand.

"Stand with your backs together!" Sora called out. "That way, he can't get us from behind!"

The seven pressed together into a tight circle, weapons facing outward.

"Bring it on, Lizard Boy," Riku growled.

"You think you're so smart," came a voice from the ceiling. Sora launched his Keyblade at it—

And like lightning, Randall zoomed down to the unarmed Sora and put him into a headlock.

"LET HIM GO!" cried Riku. He swung his weapon at where he thought Randall was, but it turned out he actually wasn't, and Soul Eater bit into Sora's flesh instead.

"SORA!"

"I'm all right," Sora coughed. He suddenly felt the pressure release from his neck. "Find him!"

Jack's hands crawled around the floor like spiders, delivering each of his scattered bones to a pile in the corner near his skull.

Kairi took a swing when she heard the skittering of feet, but she missed. "Huh?" she said out loud. "I thought he was walking over—"

She was felled by a blow to the head.

Sora rushed to her, but she stood up and assured him she was fine. "It came from the wall," she told him.

"He can walk on WALLS TOO?" Riku gaped.

"This is just not my day," grumped Donald. A roundhouse kick was delivered to his head, sending him flying across the room. "WAAAHAHAAAAK!"

Zexion was angered beyond belief at that time. He lifted his hands into the air, and the Lexicon floated between them.

Sora knew what that meant. "HIT THE DIRT!"

The heroes hit the ground just in time before a shockwave of energy emanated from the small book and covered everything over three feet off the floor. The room shook.

"That really hurt," said a voice from the East wall. Zexion spun to hurl the book at the East wall, but Randall's charade worked again. The canister came flying from the right.

Zexion collapsed to the ground, his thin frame pinned beneath the heavy canister.

Riku charged the place where the canister had come from, but Randall was gone again. Soul Eater was simply driven into the wall. Riku tried to pry the weapon free, but he couldn't. Sora rushed to assist him; between the two of them, they managed to dislodge the blade from the wall. They stood back-to-back until a prompt from Mickey caused them to leap in opposite directions as a canister crashed down into the spot where they had both been standing.

Goofy crouched down with his shield over his head to protect it from falling canisters.

Zexion panted through gritted teeth: "That's…it." With a tremendous effort, he shrugged the canister off his frail body. He stood and screamed, "ONE OF US HAS TO FIND YOU!"

A plethora of Zexion clones erupted from the original, rushing about the room in a mad scramble for the chameleon-like monster.

"No use," said Mickey. "He'll be on the ceiling!"

"Then the clones will keep him there," Zexion explained. "And just to be safe…" He snapped his fingers, and the clones grabbed every remaining canister in the room. Randall was deprived of ammunition.

It was Sora who had the idea at last. With the canisters gone, Randall would resort to physical attacks…

He climbed up on the seat of the Scream Extractor and cried, "Take this!" before flinging his Keyblade at a corner of the ceiling.

"You idiot!" Riku cried. "What are you doing? You don't know if he's there!"

Randall spied Sora, unarmed once more, and dropped upon him like a spider.

Sora was ready. He quickly grabbed the reptile around the waist and struggled with him until he had ahold of the head. Sora then forced the monster into the seat of the Extractor, belted him in…

"What are you doing?" Randall screamed. "NO!"

Sora rushed to the control panel of the machine. He wasn't sure how it worked, but in situations like that, the best idea was usually to press the big red button, so that's what he did.

The vacuum slowly moved toward Randall's mouth.

The clones replaced the canisters in the machine's edge so the screams would have someplace to go.

"No!" Randall cried. "You can't DO this!"

Sora and company tried not to look at him as they rushed over to Jack. In no time, between Sora, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Kairi, Riku, Zexion, and all of the clones, Jack's bones had been pieced together like a life-size jigsaw.

The Mayor came to. "What happened?" he asked. His eyes fell on the struggling Randall, who had abandoned his invisibility and was looking paler than a summer cloud. "On second thought, I don't want to know."

"Come on," said Jack, looking sternly at the Mayor. "We need to talk."

He led the group upstairs, leaving Randall to give his muffled cries for help.

* * *

"And Zexion even warned you!" Jack chided. "But you didn't listen!"

"But the prospect of Halloween's expansion…" the Mayor tried.

"Is nothing compared to the many beings you almost hurt!" Jack argued.

"Well, don't blame me!" the Mayor bawled. "I'm only an elected official!"

Jack grinned. "That's right," he said. "You are an ELECTED official. That means someone can take your place in the elections next year."

"But who could possibly run that would be more popular than me?" the Mayor asked.

That was the wrong question.

* * *

Jack gathered the many citizens of Halloween Town around the fountain of sludge in the Town Square. "Fellow citizens of Halloween Town!" he cried. "I have come to formally announce that I am running for Mayor in the next election!"

The cheering that erupted from the crowd was reminiscent of a sonic boom.

Needless to say, the Mayor wore his sad face for quite a while after that.

"I think he'll make a great Mayor," said Kairi. All of a sudden, she pressed her hands to her head.

"What's wrong?" Sora asked.

"It's happening again…"

Kairi hit the ground.

Sora carried the limp princess all the way back to the Doom Buggies. He climbed back into the one he and Kairi had shared and lay her across the leather seat for her comfort.

"Did she mean that there was another attack on the Heart of All Worlds?" Riku asked.

His question was answered for him. There came a violent rumbling, as though all of the multiverse was quaking.

"Get in the buggy!" yelled Mickey.

Everyone of the resistance struggled to get inside the Doom Buggies and slam the doors. They did so just in time.

Everything that was a part of Halloween Town stayed in Halloween Town. A few beings fell over; some broke bones. A few rickety buildings collapsed, leaving a few ghosts in search of someplace new and just as decrepit to haunt.

However, the Doom Buggies were a form of travel through darkness. That being so, they were tied to the routes BETWEEN the worlds, and not fixed down to any one particular world.

Sora didn't know it was going to happen before it did, but he felt as though something terrible was about to occur. He quickly sat down and pulled Kairi's head onto his lap, holding her close.

As the quaking increased, all of the Doom Buggies were flung off the surface of Halloween Town and out into interspace, completely upside down.


	11. The Darkness Inside

11

11: The Darkness Inside

The buggies came to a jarring halt on the ground of another world. Their shaken passengers left them, stumbling about upon the green grass below.

Saïx was the first to erupt from the buggy. "That…was…AWESOME!" he cried. "LET'S DO THAT AGAIN!"

Merlin immediately set about treating the wounds Sora had received during the battle in Halloween Town. In no time, Sora was in mint condition again.

As soon as everyone had left Xaldin's Doom Buggy, he turned on the vehicle, sent all six lances, and tore the Buggy into scraps.

"What was that for?" asked Mickey.

"That Buggy is dead," said Xaldin, "and it should not be revived. The entire thing smelled of Zexion's vomit. Donald, we're going to need another change of clothes."

Zexion looked even more ashamed and green.

Donald waved his staff with a sigh, and the entire party was given new clothing.

"Whoa," said Sora, picking at his new outfit: regal robes with gold sewn into them.

"This is intense," said Riku. "Why are we dressed like noblemen?"

"Don't any of you recognize where we are?" Donald snapped.

They all stopped to observe their surroundings.

Mickey sighed a breath of relief. "It's home," he said, fixing his gaze on the majestic Disney Castle that rose before him.

Minnie, Daisy, Chip, Dale, Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Pluto came out to meet the party in a rush. Mickey ran forward and intercepted Minnie in a caring embrace.

"Welcome home," said Minnie. She looked over Mickey's shoulder at the myriad of beings that had followed him. "Mickey…"

"I know," said the King. "There's a lot to explain."

Those who inhabited Disney Castle escorted the resistance inside to hear the story thus far. Everyone spoke at once, and it took a while to sort out who had a turn to talk when.

Xaldin was struggling with old habits. Usually, when surrounded by this many adorable and fluffy animals, his first instinct was to stab them. The hunter in him said so. He had to keep telling himself: these are my friends, and they're here to help me. These are my friends, and they're here to help me. These are my friends, and they're here to help me. These are my friends, and they make excellent target practice NO NO NO THAT'S WRONG.

When the tale was finished, Minnie nodded. "I had a feeling something like this was going on when he showed up looking for you."

"Who came looking for me?" Mickey asked.

"Over here!" came a voice from a nearby table.

"We're about to get assistance from a table?" Myed whispered.

Of course, the voice was not coming from the table, but from the cricket on it.

"Jiminy!" Mickey rushed forward to greet his old friend.

"I heard you'd left for another adventure without anyone to keep a journal!" Jiminy joked.

"We'd be glad to have you aboard!" Sora smiled.

Xaldin pursed his lips. Crickets were even worse. He simply could not abide that noise: chirp, chirp, chiiiiiirp… If Jiminy got too close to him…impending SQUISH.

Mickey let the cricket hop up onto his shoulder, then went to stand in the crowd again…right next to Xaldin. The Lancer was aggravated, glaring over at the cricket next to him. Just glaring. Then staring, rather sympathetically. Then turning his head back to face forward and bawling audibly.

"XALDIN?" Sora was shocked. "What's…wrong?"

"I can't believe myself!" cried the tough Lancer. "I can't believe I had such horrible thoughts about the beings here! And the things I've done…the poor Princess…I caused her pain, and taunted the Beast with what he loved most…how could I have done such atrocities?"

"What in Hades' name is going on?" Axel wrinkled his nose.

"I think I know," said Jiminy. "I'm not just a Journal keeper, you know. I'm also a conscience!"

"A conscience?" Axel was amused. "So Xaldin's finally got a moral compass?" He laughed. "Well, this is fun…but I really want to try this out on SAIX!"

He grasped the cricket ("Hey!") and brought him over to rest on the Diviner's shoulder. Saïx was, at first, annoyed…but in a matter of minutes he was on the floor wailing, "HOW COULD I? HOW COULD I? I NEVER DESERVED A HEART!"

Axel laughed again. "Now let's try it on Zexi—"

"Let's NOT try it on Zexion," Zexion growled, giving Axel a glare that would have turned many to stone.

"Okay, okay." Axel put his hands up in surrender.

Jiminy hopped from shoulder to shoulder until he sat on Mickey's once more…this time on the shoulder that was furthest away from Xaldin.

"Has anything bad happened here?" Sora asked Minnie.

"No!" said the Queen. "It's the strangest thing! Not a Heartless, a villain, or a curse to be seen!"

"That's good," said Sora.

"Have we got any more gummi ships in the hangar?" Mickey asked.

Chip looked at the floor and traced an arc on it with his foot. "Sorry, but all the ships there are goin' through MAJOR repairs!"

"Well," said Mickey, "since we haven't got a mode of transportation for the time being, and it seems about time for a rest…would it be all right if we stayed here for a few days?"

"Don't ask us," said Daisy. "It's your castle."

"All right!"

Every member of the resistance was glad to finally have come upon rest.

* * *

Xehanort stormed angrily into Number XIII's chambers. "YAGAMI!"

Light was curled up in his bed. "What?"

"Something's wrong!"

"I wrote the name down like you asked," Light grumped.

Xehanort pointed out the window at the moon that was even more blob-shaped, but still mostly intact. "Then why is THAT still there?"

"You're not going to believe me," Light droned.

Xehanort snarled. "Try me."

"Superior, sir, there's something in that heart that's protecting it. There's no way to kill it…because something's fighting back."

"That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!" Xehanort turned to leave. Before he slammed the door, Light could hear him say, "Try again!"

* * *

Sora had only seen a small portion of Disney Castle. He hadn't imagined that the interior could be so huge…and decorated in such a variegated manner. Each guest was set up with a room that fit their milieu exactly. Some rooms were decorated in an Arabian style, others with a tropical motif, still others with a Chinese or British inspiration present.

Sora took pleasure in wandering around the castle, ingesting all there was to see. He discovered a quaint little lounge on the same floor as his room, one filled with books. He relaxed there whenever he needed a change of scenery.

It wasn't long before Axel and Myed also discovered the lounge, and Sora was all too happy to share the space with them.

"This is definitely the life," said Axel, stretching out on a couch.

"Mmhmm," Myed replied, thoroughly distracted by a book he was reading.

Sora placed his hands behind his head and lay back in his chair without saying a word.

All of a sudden, there was a bursting feeling above his head. His two companions growled in anger. Something sluggishly dripped through Sora's hair and down his face…he opened his eyes…the liquid hit his mouth, and he accidentally swallowed some. It was maple syrup.

"Is this some idea of a joke?" cried Axel, syrup running down his face as well.

Sora immediately inferred what had happened: somebody had rigged up three water balloons filled with maple syrup so they would hang on the ceiling and then drop upon their helpless victims.

Raucous laughing came from the other side of the lounge door. Sora got up and flung it open; no one was immediately beyond. He looked from side to side; he saw the backs of Donald's triplet nephews disappearing around the corner.

"Huey, Dewey, and Louie!" he cried. "That's not surprising."

"Those little twerps!" yelled Axel.

"My hair," whined Myed.

Sora turned to his friends with a semi-malicious grin stretching across his face. "If they want to play pranks, how about we play with them?"

"Revenge!" Myed cried. "For what they did to my hair."

"Will you shut up about your hair?" Axel snapped. "I've got a plan already. Listen. Those three are, like, what, seven or eight years old? Well, kids that young tend to scare easy…" He noticed Donald passing by the lounge outside the door. "Hey, Donald!" he called out, making sure his plan would work. "Do your nephews still believe in ghosts?"

"Yeah…" Donald sighed. Even the mention of the triplets was enough to convince him he was getting an ulcer.

"But ghosts ARE real," said Myed. "Don't you remember Halloween Town?"

"Oh, yeah," said Axel. "Anyway, this is perfect. We can scare the little brats out of their minds. I say we lead them to a dark and empty room because it has sea salt ice cream in it. We hide somewhere. Then we kill all the remaining lights in the room. Sora, you'll use some Thundaga to make it look like it's storming inside. By the light of the lightning, they'll just be able to see the really weird shaped water clones that you'll conjure up, Myed. We make howling noises like the 'ghosts' are angry and out for revenge. It'll scare the pants off them!"

"Despite the fact that they don't have pants," said Sora. "I'm totally in."

"Me too," said Myed, poking at his hair to see if it had been completely ruined by the syrup.

"In fact," said Sora, "I know the perfect place to do it. There's an underground room here…the Hall of the Cornerstone. It's not bad when you're in it with others, but when you're alone there, it's really creepy. The Cornerstone provides a lot of light, but we can cover it with a sheet or something right before we start sending out the 'ghosts'."

"Brilliant, Sora!" said Axel. "You wanna go check the place out and find someplace we can hide?"

"Sure!"

* * *

The Audience Chamber was deserted, save for one curious Nobody. Marluxia looked around to make sure he was truly alone, and then ran giddily to the throne in front of him. A throne…a symbol of power…the thing he'd always wanted! Since he had been foiled at Castle Oblivion, and now it was established that there would BE no new Superior, Marluxia thought it would be okay just to have a little harmless fun and PRETEND he had the power.

He settled comfortably into the throne. He pictured the other Nobodies plus Myed around him. "You!" he called out. "Xaldin! My boots are filthy, and need a shine! Come shine them!" He had a nice mental image of Xaldin gritting his teeth as he scrubbed at Marluxia's feet with a toothbrush. "Myed!" he called out next. "Entertain me!" His ears heard a nonexistent song that had been written just for the Assassin. "Xigbar…the music needs a dancer. Dance for me!" He laughed maliciously as he imagined the Freeshooter trying to do a dance. He prepared his next command. "You! Zexion!"

But the mental image did not please him. He saw the Schemer kneeling before him in complete submission, hands and feet chained together, eyes watering with sadness but still shining with devotion for his master…

Marluxia closed his eyes and shook his head. There was no way he could subject the one he loved to that sort of low. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he didn't want to subject the others to humiliation, either.

He stepped down off the throne. The game was no longer fun.

He heard the door of the Audience Chamber squeak open and slam shut. He faced the newcomer. "Oh! Sora!"

"Hey, Marluxia." Sora rushed for the throne. "I'm just passing through."

"That's okay," said Marluxia. "I was just leaving."

As he exited, he thought about the power he was missing out on…and decided he didn't really miss it all that much.

* * *

Sora ran down the many stairs to the familiar Hall of the Cornerstone…and stopped in his tracks. Something was horribly wrong. The Hall was coated in thorns again, as it had been when Maleficent tried to take over the castle.

A dark portal appeared in the center of the room. Sora could not have predicted what sort of creature would step forward from it…the newcomer was twice as tall as Sora, and several times as fat. His skin was green and calloused; his bald head was adorned with a mouth full of fangs and a helmet sporting two broken horns. He appeared to be some sort of ogre, or a goblin.

Sora's memories from Link told him who this was. "King Bulblin," he said. "You work for Ganondorf."

"I follow the strongest side," said the oversized Bulblin. "I have come to deliver a warning."

"Oh yeah?" Sora drew his Keyblade. "We don't need your threats, Bulblin!"

"You must listen," said Bulblin, "before it is too late."

"Get out of here!" Sora snapped, hurling his Keyblade.

"Fine," growled Bulblin, backing away and disappearing into a dark portal before the Keyblade could touch him.

* * *

"…and then he left," Sora finished telling Axel and Myed.

Axel shook his head. "Sora…"

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Sora," Axel said frankly, "I messed up. Your weakness isn't politeness. In fact, it's the opposite."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think you have this innate sense of who's good and who's bad. If somebody seems good to you, you'll be loyal to them forever…go to the End of the World to protect them…but if somebody seems bad, you won't listen to a word they say."

"I don't think you're…"

"Do you remember what you said to Xigbar when you first met him at Hollow Bastion? You yelled at him to move, then asked, 'You gonna cry?' Even for facing off against a mad gunman, that was rather rude."

"But he was…I mean…"

"And what about me?" Myed put in. "When we met up at Hollow Bastion, all I said was 'You guys are looking lively!' and you asked me how a wimp like me got into Organization XIII."

"But you were there to fight me! You told me so yourself back on the Islands!"

"Did you know that at the time?"

Sora thought about it. "No…"

"He said he wanted to give you a warning," said Axel. "He also said he followed the strongest side. Aren't we the strongest side now? Maybe he heard through his master Ganon-whatever that the Neo-Organization was planning an attack on the castle, and he wanted to let us know."

Sora turned pale. "We have to tell the king about this."

"Ya think?"

* * *

They decided the attack was most likely to come from the Hall of the Cornerstone. Someone had to stay there and make sure to head off the opposition before the opposition could get to them all.

They decided to guard the Hall in shifts. Some stayed down there during the day, while others watched the Hall at night.

Sora tried to persuade Zexion not to take a shift; he was under enough pressure already. The Schemer had other ideas. He volunteered himself to stay in the Hall during midnight: the Witching Hour.

When the cloaked figure portalled into the Hall of the Cornerstone, she was surprised to find that she was not alone…but then realized that she should not have been surprised. Of course the little resistance would have that worked out.

The man waiting for her didn't look like much…he was short and skinny, with his silver hair sweeping over one eye and his hand over his mouth in a thoughtful pose. However, Xehanort had told Maleficent enough about this man that she knew not to underestimate him.

"What a nice surprise, Zexion," said Maleficent, taking off her Neo-Organization hood.

Zexion was stunned to discover that she actually had hair, and lots of it…black hair twisted into braids. "Equally nice to see you, Maleficent," he spat.

"Have you come to take me on yourself?" Maleficent asked.

"Of course not," said Zexion. He cast his hand in front of him to create a portal, but the dark circle collapsed on itself during production.

"You really should have seen that coming," said Maleficent. "And don't bother to go running upstairs. The passage is closed and locked."

Zexion didn't look fazed. "Just because I didn't intend to take you on myself doesn't mean I'm incapable of doing so."

"Really?" Maleficent swung her staff in a circle. Green lightning shot out and caused lacerations in the thorny vines. When the lightning connected with Zexion, he doubled over in pain.

He straightened, looking up into Maleficent's eyes. "You've done enough," he said, "and it is time you do no more."

He raised his hands, the Lexicon floating between them.

Fire rained down from the ceiling, bombarding Maleficent. The witch was enveloped in the column; even when Zexion was sure she was dead, he kept sending more fire, which spread to all corners of the room.

He called off the fire…but as the flames dissipated, he was horrified to see Maleficent standing in the middle of the room, very much alive.

"Foolish mage," she chided. "It will take more than that to defeat the Mistress of All Evil. However…" She casually glanced at the thorny vines, which were on fire, and the flames that were spreading to the walls of the Hall of the Cornerstone, the castle's very foundation. "It seems that was enough to destroy this place."

"I'll take down this whole castle," growled Zexion, "if it means burying you in its rubble."

"Oh, this seems familiar," Maleficent taunted. "Where have I heard the story of a man so driven by his sole ambition, he was blinded to the friends he was hurting?" Zexion remembered the rest of his friends and allies sleeping upstairs in the castle…a chill rushed through his veins. "That's right!" cried Maleficent. "The same was true of Ansem's foolish apprentice Ienzo!"

Zexion rushed up the dark stairs of the Hall. He pounded on the ceiling, which was the door to the Hall, guarded by the throne of the Audience Chamber. "Someone!" he cried. "Please! Let me…" He abandoned his goal of wanting to rescue himself, and instead cried out, "Get out of here! If anyone can hear me, please let me know! Leave, and take all the others with you…the castle's going down!"

His eyes were ringed in hot tears.

He heard the witch cackling behind him.

"SOMEBODY! ANYBODY!" He beat his fists on the ceiling until they began to bleed.

A great orange light flared behind him—the flames were headed up the stairs.

The ceiling shifted. Goofy was coming in for the one o'clock shift of watching the Cornerstone. He did not expect to be met by the last guard in a panic and a rush of flames.

"We've got to get the others out of here!" Zexion screamed. He could already see smoke coming up through the cracks in the tile of the Audience Chamber floor…

* * *

A hasty evacuation was executed. The resistance and all of the inhabitants of Disney Castle stood outside the great building, watching as fire conquered it and waved its orange banners through every window.

"It's a good thing we're all safe," said Mickey. He spoke too soon. He heard a loud bawling coming from the direction of Donald's nephews. He rushed over to Dewey and Louie to ask what was wrong, but he realized he didn't have to. Dewey and Louie were the only ones there, and as long as Mickey had known the triplets, they had never traveled without all three of them present.

"Donald!" he cried. "Huey's trapped somewhere in the castle!"

"WHAT?" Donald screeched.

"The brat in red's in there?" Axel asked.

"Don't call my nephew a brat!" Donald yelled, even though he had used the term against his relatives several times.

That was enough confirmation for Axel. He took off running for the building.

"AXEL, YOU IDIOT!" Larxene screamed. "WHAT ARE YOU—"

"Don't worry!" Axel called back. "Fire doesn't hurt me!"

He crossed the threshold of the burning castle.

"HUEY! HUEY! HEY, BRAT! WHERE ARE YOU?" Axel cried, dashing through every hallway. Sometimes debris would fall from the ceiling, obstructing his path, but he just chopped it away with a chakram.

At last he found the cowering duckling in the lounge. He let out a breath of relief.

Huey looked up at Axel, shivering.

Axel scooped Huey into his arms. "Don't worry, kid," he assured the frightened boy. "We're gettin' out of here faster than you can say 'sea salt ice cream'."

Of course, leaving the castle was harder than entering it. Axel had run right through several flames in his search, for he was invincible to them. However, now that he was carrying a slightly more flammable being, he had to find a way to dodge the flames instead of running through them.

He was almost to the great front door—but now there was a ring of flames around him, and no way through—

A rafter fell from the ceiling and pinned Axel to the floor, knocking Huey out of his arms.

Huey ran to him. "Axel!"

"I'm okay, kid," said Axel, even though he couldn't move. He had to think of something fast, or the duck was dead…and then the rest of the roof would fall in, and Axel would be dead too…

"DANCE, WATER, DANCE!"

A torrent of water broke the ring of flames. Myed went running into the melée. "What happened?"

"Don't ask," said Axel. "Just get me out of here."

Myed used all of his strength to shove the splintered plank to the side. Axel stood, and Huey practically jumped back into his arms.

"I owe you double now," said Axel.

"Forget it!" Myed cried. "Quick, we gotta get out of here! Vexen's keeping the fire out of the front door!"

The two men ran for it, charging through an arch of ice that had once been the front door. Vexen let the enchantment go, and the doorframe collapsed in flames.

Larxene was incredibly relieved when Axel came out of the building unharmed—and the way he cradled the tiny Huey simply radiated compassion. Larxene felt a rush she had never known before, a rush of true admiration.

Axel set the duck down in front of Donald. "I believe this is yours," he announced.

"Unca Donald!" Huey flung his arms around his uncle.

"Hey, hey!" Donald cried. "Get off!"

With a gigantic crack that was heard around the planet, Disney Castle collapsed, becoming nothing more than a pile of plaster on the ground.

The fire subsided immediately after the castle went down. Some suspect that Maleficent had something to do with that…since the damage was done, she left the group to be hurt by emotional damage instead.

"What happened?" said Sora.

"The fire started in the Hall of the Cornerstone!" said Goofy.

Sora turned to Zexion. "You were down there before Goofy…did you see what happened?"

"I met Maleficent," he said, not making eye contact.

"So this is her fault!" Mickey cried.

"That's odd," said Riku. "I would've thought her fire would be green."

"She didn't start the fire," said Zexion.

"Then who did?" Goofy asked.

Zexion stared straight ahead, unblinking. "I did."

Sora was about to question him, but then he noticed the wisps of darkness floating up off his skin…the same sort of darkness that had erupted forth when Axel faded…

Zexion slowly kneeled. Then he put his hands on the ground. Then he simply fell so he was lying on the ground on his stomach, dark essence floating away from him.

He had almost destroyed his friends.

He had almost destroyed all they were working for.

It was the final factor his frailty needed to complete itself.

"He's fading," said Sora, "HE'S FADING!"

* * *

***************** voices **************** concerned voices ***************** "Zexion! Zexion, get up!" Sora **************** how can he forgive me after ****************** "Zexion, my dear boy! Don't let the darkness take you! Fight it off, lad!" and that would be Merlin ********************************** "C'mon, pal, ya gotta get up!" says Mickey after I destroyed his home and nearly his family ***************************************************************************************************f ootsteps rushing *********************************** I'm flipped over and my head is drawn onto someone's lap and I think I know who ************************************************* he says "No, not Zex, not my Zex!" It's Marly ******************************************* don't try to get me to fight it ************************************* we all know ******************************* this is where I belong ******************************************************************* it's better this way anyway *******************************************************

********************* when out of the recesses of memory comes this: small Ienzo, being tucked into bed by his mother. She kisses him on the forehead.

"Goodnight, my light," she says. "Your light shall never fade."

That was before she died *******************************************

**************************** Ansem the Wise asked Ienzo to help him with a project, but the youngest apprentice failed. He killed the Heartless they were using as a subject by accident, and also managed to break one of the heart containment units of the lab in the process. Now he's sitting on his bed, sobbing.

The Wise scientist comes in to comfort him. Ienzo is…what…thirteen? Younger?

Ansem sits on the end of the bed. "It's okay, Ienzo."

"No, it's not."

"Don't worry about the containment unit. There isn't anything that breaks that can't be fixed."

That makes Ienzo feel a little better at least…but it doesn't touch the heart of the matter. And since Ienzo has a heart, he cares about this sort of thing. He's not indifferent like Zexion would have been about one meaningless Shadow.

"I killed it. I made it die."

Ansem pats Ienzo on the head. "Please do not trouble yourself with that."

"That's something that breaks that can't be fixed. A life."

Ansem assures Ienzo, "That may be true, but after some time, those who loved the life will move on, and the life will move on to a better place. There is a legend, in fact, that says that when one of the Heartless beings dies, its heart goes to rest in the Heart of All Worlds. So it's better for it to be there than serving a life as a lab rat."

At least Ienzo has stopped crying now. He still regrets doing it, but it was an accident, and it's okay now. The Heartless is better off.

"In fact…" Now Ansem seems to be mumbling entirely to himself. "Braig is working on a theory that hidden somewhere in the darkness is the key to resurrection…"

"So we could bring back the dead?" Ienzo is excited.

Ansem shakes his head. "Do not mind me, boy. I'm just rambling. Remember this…everyone makes mistakes. Don't let it bring you down. Don't give up just because of a mistake."

"Okay." *************************************************************

************************ A more recent memory: Sora says, "If there's anything I can do to help…anything at all…"

But he goes on. "I'm saying this because I CARE about you. We all do now. You're not all that bad. We can't lose you now!"

He never said that ******************************** but I get the point ************************************************

******************* faces ***************************** face of Ansem the Wise ***************************** face of Mother *************************************** face of Sora ******************* these faces are turning into light, they're wiping out the darkness until *********************************************** from outside, I hear ************************ and it comforts me to hear *************************** It's what I told him, but now he's saying it to me ************************************** he says:

* * *

"It's a nightmare, Zexion. All you have to do is wake up. I'll be right here."

* * *

Zexion's eyes were closed.

He felt something delicate float down from the air and land on his forehead, tickling his skin. Another landed on his cheek. They were flower petals.

He pried open his eyes to see Marluxia's face over him, petals dropping from his hair. His whole face was tightened with worry.

"Marly," Zexion whispered.

Marluxia's face softened. "I think he's coming to," he told Mickey, Merlin, and Sora. "Thank God."

Zexion reached up to touch Marluxia's face. "I'm fine," he said. "I'm not going to give in. Not yet."

"Atta boy!" said Merlin.

"That's the spirit!" Mickey echoed.

"Mickey…" Zexion struggled to spit out. "The fire was an accident. I was trying to kill Maleficent. I wasn't thinking. I—"

"Don't worry about the castle. There's nothing that breaks that can't be fixed." Had Mickey learned that from Ansem, or had Ansem been taught that saying by Mickey? "What's important is that we didn't lose you."

Zexion laughed. "How ironic. Your home is gone, completely turned to ash…and you rejoice because the man who once desired nothing more than to bring ruin to you all is alive."

"But you've changed," Sora pointed out.

"That I did." A weak smile. "Mickey…"

"Yeah?"

"The reason I can't be the Last Counselor," Zexion croaked, "is because I can't survive the pressure. Being me is killing me."

"Don't think about that now," Mickey ordered.

Zexion attempted to sit up, but Merlin pushed him back into a lying position. "No, no," he said. "If you're going to live, you're going to rest."

"But I can—"

"Ah, ah!" Merlin opened his bag, and out came a bed, at first the size of a doll's bed but quickly expanding into a queen-size mattress. "You're going to take it easy. We don't want another scare."

Marluxia gently lifted Zexion onto the bed, wobbling a little from carrying the weight, but managing to set him down without dropping him.

"You know," said Sora, "I'm not the only one who takes our purpose down with him if he dies."

Zexion smiled at him. "Such a kind statement to give to one who has stood against you for so long."

"Well," said Sora, "we're standing together now."

Kairi looked on from a distance. Sora was so forgiving…she felt like the luckiest woman in the world, to be his soul mate forever.

"So what happens when a Nobody dies, anyway?" Riku asked, striding up to the crowd.

"They fade away into nothing," said Mickey.

"No," said Marluxia, "that's not true. We go to the Underworld like the others. That's how Xehanort brought us all back. He fished us all out of the Styx. People of the darkness can do that. That's why those of the darkness are capable of resurrection…because they can reason with Hades."

"Oh, yeah!" said Sora. "Now I remember! I came across Zexion's ghost in the Cave of the Dead! It was in the form of the Lexicon!"

"Huh?" said Mickey. "I don't remember that happenin'!"

"Well," said Riku, "it did only happen in the Final Mix."

"Huh?" said Mickey.

Riku was dumbfounded. "I would have thought that YOU of all beings would know," he sighed. "Goodness, did no one else see the opportunity when Lexaeus punched that huge hole in the fourth wall in part 6.5? I know I went outside it for a walk then."

Mickey whispered to Sora, "Any idea what he's talking about?"

"Not a clue," replied Sora. "One of these days, I've really gotta find out what this fourth wall thingy is."

Riku smacked his head with his hand.

* * *

As the day progressed, and the party could not figure out anything better to do but sit around, Myed got bored again.

"So what do you think Marluxia's real name is?" he asked. "'Cause I did some work on it, and I figured out when you take out the X, you get 'I'm Laura'!"

Marluxia lowered his head into his hands. "I can assure you, I am not THAT effeminate."

"And what about the Angel Star Heartless? I read they were born of holy spells. How can a holy spell produce something that's evil incarnate? And why did Xemnas need two water mages in the Organization anyway?"

Saïx shifted uncomfortably. Was this the right moment to tell Myed that Xemnas had long thought the same thing, or about Xemnas' plot to dispose of him? No, it wasn't the right moment.

"I maintain," said Vexen, "I am NOT a water mage. My power is ICE. There's a difference!"

Sora sat on the side of the crowd, not saying anything. Kairi moved toward him.

"Sora? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," sighed Sora.

Kairi leaned into his face. "I don't believe you."

"Well," Sora said, looking first up at the sky and then deeply into Kairi's eyes, "Axel said something to me in the lounge earlier that got me thinking. You know, we're mad at all of these villains for killing everyone in their quests for power. But I…I did the same thing, in the name of light, that they did in the name of darkness. At first I didn't mean it. I didn't really kill Cerberus…I just wounded him. And Clayton only died because his own Heartless fell on him. And I just knocked Hook overboard, and we put Jafar back in the lamp. But the others…Ursula, and Oogie Boogie, and the Organization…I killed them all. And now I'm on a quest to kill Xehanort. Does that make me as bad as him?"

Kairi kissed her worrying companion on the mouth. "No," she said. "Your intentions are good."

"I know…but I still can't fully believe that what I'm doing is the right thing."

"Sora…I wish I knew whether or not this was the right thing, but I don't know either. All I can say is that we've figured out what was right before, and I'm sure we'll figure it out this time before it's too late. I have faith in us."

Sora grasped Kairi's hand. "I'm glad to hear that."

Zexion was asleep, dreaming the rest of the memory his foray into oblivion had given him…and the reason he had gone over to the darkness in the first place.

* * *

Ansem gets up to leave Ienzo's room. "Come," he says. "There are more experiments to be done. Don't worry…just calculations on paper. Nothing that can be killed. Just things you can handle with your skill." He smiles.

Ienzo smiles back. Then he just has to ask, because it's driving him insane.

"Is it really true, that those who are associated with darkness can bring back the dead?"

"I don't know, Ienzo."

"Can the darkness bring back my mom and dad?"

Ansem sees where Ienzo's train of thought is going. "It is only a theory, Ienzo! Do not dwell on it!" He is afraid…afraid that such notions will turn the lowly orphan over to the worlds of death and darkness…but he thinks that sufficient warning will be enough to bring Ienzo back to where he can be trusted again.

Ansem is wrong.

Ienzo is already set on his path to destruction.


	12. Queen of Hearts

12

12: Queen of Hearts

"I have a question," Lexaeus asked the bedridden Zexion.

"Yeah?"

"If you were in love with Marluxia this whole time, how come you kept telling me he was a danger to us all that had to be destroyed?"

Zexion smiled. "Because I knew that if you knew the truth, you'd rat me out."

"That is unfortunately true."

* * *

Luxord was simply taking a walk, minding his own business, when he tripped over something. He looked at what had caught his foot. It was a rabbit hole.

"Rabbits," he muttered angrily. However…something about the hole seemed familiar…what had he once heard about a rabbit hole that was important?

Luxord strode back to the crowd. "Any news?"

"No," said Sora.

Zexion sat right up in bed. "I smell something. Something horrible."

Axel pointed to Myed, whose only defense was "HEY!"

"Not THAT kind of horrible," Zexion clarified. "Something horrible is about to attack us."

Sora turned his head to the West…and he saw it coming.

"It's…it's another army of Heartless!"

"More Darksides?" Donald asked.

"No," said Sora. "Trickmasters."

As the Trickmasters got closer, Goofy asked, "Should we run?"

"Can't…" Mickey pointed. The Trickmasters weren't just coming from the West. They came from the East, the North, the South too…

"Oh, snap," Riku muttered.

"We're surrounded!" cried Minnie. She buried her face in her hands.

"We better be ready for another fight," said Mulan, and weapons were drawn.

"I can't WAIT to show these Trickmasters what we're made of," said Xigbar.

Luxord suddenly remembered what it was that was so special about rabbit holes. A half-baked idea popped into his head.

He rushed off to the hole, which was still inside the circle made by the Trickmasters.

No one seemed to notice that Luxord was gone.

At last, the Trickmasters completely surrounded the resistance. A black-cloaked member of the Neo-Organization walked around to stand inside the circle with the victims.

"Hello," said Redd Heart, the Poisonous Rose. She drew a sword with one hand and a black, twisted scepter with the other. "I hope you're prepared."

"We are," said Zexion, flinging back the blanket and leaping out of bed.

Merlin started to chide him, but Zexion flung his hand in front of the wizard's face. "I. Am. Fine."

"Then let us begin," said Redd.

* * *

Luxord finally stopped falling and hit the ground of Wonderland. It was exactly as he remembered it from the book he had read. He wandered about until he came to a courtyard that housed exactly what he was looking for: a plump woman with a tiny crown and several life-size anthropomorphic cards.

"Excuse me, madam," Luxord addressed the Queen of Hearts.

"What do you want?" the Queen snapped.

"Madam, my friends and I are in a spot of trouble, and I believe you have what could be the answer to our problem."

"And that would be?"

Luxord called up his own cards, making them dance about and fly through the air like giant razors. When he recalled them into his hand, the card soldiers applauded.

"That is one of my many powers," said Luxord. "However, if you were to lend me your military forces, imagine what we could do together!"

The card soldiers immediately began whispering to each other. How exotic, to become part of the dancing deck of this master of sleight!

"Hmmmm," said the Queen. "I suppose you could borrow my army…but you shall have to win them from me!"

Luxord smirked. With his time powers, he could win anything.

"What's the game?" he asked.

The queen smirked. "Croquet."

* * *

In a few minutes, Luxord was beginning to think it wouldn't be as easy as he thought. The arches of the course were the cards themselves, and they didn't seem to be opposed to moving in order to help the queen cheat.

When Luxord's first turn came, he swung the mallet back—

Only to have the mallet lean forward and start nibbling his ear.

"Madam," he pointed out," this is a flamingo."

"Of COURSE it's a flamingo!" the Queen snapped. "What do you think I would play croquet with? IGUANAS?"

"I guess not." Luxord set up for the swing once more. (Imagine the frustration he would have felt if he had known the true identity of the ball.) At just the right moment, before the flamingo's head connected with the "ball", time froze for everyone but Luxord. He picked up the ball and rolled it through three hoops. Then time unfroze.

"What?" cried the Queen. "Where's the ball?"

"It's over here!" cried a soldier.

"How did it get over there?" the Queen bellowed.

"Well, the only way it could have done that was to go through those three hoops," Luxord pointed out.

"You have a point," said the Queen. She drew back her own "mallet" and smacked the ball so it went through FOUR hoops.

Luxord sighed. He had just been given a true challenge.

* * *

At last, the score was tallied. The winner had achieved victory by one point.

That victor was Luxord.

He let out a sigh of relief. For a minute, he had thought the Queen's cheating skills would surpass his own.

"Impossible!" the Queen screeched.

"I beg to differ," said Luxord.

"Fine," the Queen huffed. "Take them. They never do a decent job of painting my roses red anyway."

"YOU SAID YOU WANTED THEM WHITE," a soldier growled.

Luxord put out his hand. All fifty-two card soldiers shrunk to a convenient size and became part of his deck.

The Gambler turned to leave via the rabbit hole, but the White Rabbit came charging from nowhere, yelling, "Wait, wait! You have beaten the Queen at a croquet match! That means—"

"Frankly, I do not care," said Luxord, ignoring the rabbit and making his way to the rabbit hole.

* * *

"LUXORD!" Axel screamed. "Where have you BEEN!"

"Getting us help," Luxord explained. He surveyed the situation: everyone was locked in battle against a Trickmaster, except for Sora, who was grappling against a woman with a red bramble of hair.

"Wait a minute," said Luxord. "Didn't I just SEE that woman…" But he shook his head, because he obviously hadn't.

All of the party was surprised to see Luxord suddenly appear in the midst of the brawl. He began to deal out his customary cards…but they WEREN'T his customary cards. These cards stood on two feet and rushed to attack the Trickmasters with battle-axes.

"Card soldiers!" Sora cried, catching the faintest glimpses of the assistance.

In no time, the card soldiers had taken down the Trickmasters. Redd was all that remained.

Sora slashed at her stomach, and she doubled over, clutching it. He grasped her shoulder, throwing her down. He placed his foot on her chest and set the Keyblade against her neck.

"Finish her off, Sora!" Axel encouraged.

All Sora could see, however, was the fear in Redd's eyes. She wasn't just a villain anymore to him, not after his previous thoughts. She was alive, she was a person, and somewhere inside of her beat a heart…

He remembered Yen Sid telling him that everyone's hearts were connected.

Sora removed the blade from Redd's neck.

"WHAT?" everyone in the crowd cried.

Redd laughed cruelly and portalled away.

"What did you do THAT for?" Marluxia yelled.

"Don't," said Riku. He had noticed that Sora was crying.

"Sora?" Kairi said, moving closer to him. Sora looked up at her with his moist eyes. She was just a red-haired silhouette to him through the tears.

She swept him into an embrace. "You'll figure out the right thing, Sora. I know it. I'm proud of you for giving it a second thought."

Sora returned her embrace, glad to have her company.

Luxord changed the subject. "I'm sure I saw that woman before," he claimed. "In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the two were completely different in looks and demeanor, I'd swear that she and the Queen of Hearts were the same person!"

"Perhaps," said Mickey, "she was a parallel-dimension version of the Queen. Sometimes many different dimensions of the same world exist."

"As though my head wasn't already spinning from this whole multiverse concept," Sparrow grumped.

"Speaking of the Queen," said a card soldier, "Luxord, we have business to attend to."

The Two of Spades grabbed Luxord's right arm and the Seven of Diamonds grasped his left. They marched him back toward the rabbit hole.

"What?" Luxord cried. "Where are you taking me?"

After the three were out of earshot, Sora saw one of the card soldiers say something to Luxord, who then gave a very audible "NOOOOOOOO!"

"Come on!" said Sora. "Let's go!"

He led the grand party to the rabbit hole.

* * *

Somehow they all slipped through the rabbit hole without any trouble. They followed Sora's lead toward the courtyard where several bushes sporting red roses (which looked sloppily painted) grew.

The first person Sora encountered was the Queen of Hearts…but she was different. She no longer wore her tiny gold crown, and was clad in a plain brown dress. Stranger yet, she was painting the roses gold.

"What's going on?" Sora asked the Queen.

"I was beaten at croquet," the Queen explained.

"Okaaaaay…" Sora wasn't sure what that had to do with anything.

"Why did I ever make that silly decree?" the Queen complained.

"What decree?" Donald asked.

"Many years ago," said the Queen, "I became so sure of my own superior croquet abilities that I wrote a decree saying that the first person to beat me at croquet would become the new Queen of Hearts."

"So that's what happened to Luxord," said Sora. "He's the new King of Hearts."

"No," grumped the Queen. "Did I say King? No! I was very specific! QUEEN."

Sora's face widened first into an expression of shock, then into a gigantic grin. "Are…you…serious?"

"Yes!" said the ex-Queen. "He ordered me to paint these roses gold for him. He said it was the least I could do to make up for the loss of his…dignity."

"Where is he now?" Sora asked, fighting off laughs.

The ex-Queen pointed. "That way."

Sora took off running, and the rest followed.

"OH…MY…"

Sora couldn't finish the statement. He burst out into laughter.

The members of the resistance were standing before the throne of the new Queen of Hearts: Luxord, decked out in the old Queen's gown, which had been tailored to fit him. Her heeled shoes dangled from his feet, her tiny crown perched on his blond head, and his face was adorned with a terrifying scowl.

"It is…NOT…funny," he hissed.

"Oh, I beg to disagree," said Axel.

Myed was rolling on the grass laughing, looking very much as though he had ingested something caffeinated.

"It hardly seems fair," said Kairi. "I mean, he's one of the Nobodies that looked worst in a dress."

The Nobodies all rounded on her. "What's THAT supposed to mean?"

"Well," said Kairi, "Back when I was Naminé, I was curious one day. So I drew you all in dresses."

"You drew ME in a DRESS?" Larxene screeched.

"All of you," said Kairi.

"So who looked the best?" Axel asked. "I just gotta know."

"It was me, wasn't it?" asked Xigbar, prompting a weird stare from Axel.

"Actually," said Kairi, "you looked pretty horrible."

Xigbar snapped his fingers in disappointment.

"Let me guess," said Xaldin. "The one who looked best was either Demyx or Zexion."

"They looked pretty good," said Kairi, "but they weren't the BEST."

"Then who was?" Axel was practically drooling.

"Saïx."

"WHAT?" The Diviner looked as though he no longer needed the moon to go berserk.

"Seriously," said Luxord, "can one of you challenge me to a game of croquet and get me out of this mess? PLEASE? I'll throw the match! This is not my color!"

"Oh, it's no longer croquet at which your challenger must beat you to become Queen," said the White Rabbit. "The next queen must surpass your skills at badminton!"

"Does NOTHING make sense in this world?" Luxord yelled angrily.

The White Rabbit shrugged. "Pretty much."

"So," said Luxord, "who's up for a game of badminton?"

"Not me," said Axel, holding up his hands in protest.

"Good," said Kairi. "You looked worst of ALL in the dress."

"Hey!"

The others all looked at each other and scraped their feet nervously on the ground.

Then, from within the crowd, a voice: "I'll do it."

It was Kairi.

"What are you—" Sora started to ask.

"Shh," she said. "I think…I think I was meant to do this."

"All right," sighed Luxord. "Just hurry it up. The sooner I get back into men's clothes, the better!"

* * *

The Eight of Hearts turned himself sideways to become the badminton net.

"And I thought I was the only VIII of hearts," said Axel.

"Oh, stop acting like you're so hot," Myed huffed.

"Well, he is a fire elemental…it follows that he should be 'hot'," Merlin pointed out.

"I've heard that pun even more than the Nobody pun," Axel complained.

"Excuse me?" Kairi said to the card soldier who had just handed her a racquet. "This is a manta ray."

"Get used to it," said Luxord, shaking out his foot which was sore from the heels. "I'll bet you anything the birdie is a real bird."

The birdie actually turned out to be a snail.

"Well, that follows absolutely NO pattern of logic," Luxord sighed.

A whistle was blown, and the game began. Luxord tossed the snail up in the air, and used the ray to slap it toward Kairi. The ray, however, flapped its fins in protest, and the snail stopped short of the net.

"Drat!" Luxord cried.

"Rays are better for surfing than croquet," said Myed.

Marluxia fixed him in an odd glare. "How do you KNOW that?"

The match picked up speed as the contestants became used to their unconventional racquets. Luxord was challenged by his own pride…it was his second nature to cheat at games, and he had to keep himself under extreme self-control to avoid falling back into the habit. He just reminded himself to think of the DRESS.

At last, Kairi made the final serve, which Luxord simply let drop to the ground.

"She has won!" yelled the Ten of Clubs.

Kairi and Luxord were immediately escorted away.

When they returned, Kairi was wearing the retailored dress, shoes, and crown while Luxord donned his previous clothes.

"Much better," Luxord sighed.

"We now pronounce thee Kairi, Queen of Hearts!" the cards chorused.

Finally Sora understood what had just taken place. Within minutes, Kairi had gone from the Princess of Heart…

To the Queen.

"I'm sorry," said Kairi, "but I have to go somewhere now. I have a quest to finish. I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise!"

As she walked off the badminton field, the cards clapped and cheered for her.

"Wait," said Sora. "Does this mean when this is over, you have to stay here?"

"No," said Mickey. "She is now the true Queen of Heart. The Queen has no true home; instead, she must travel between the worlds, defending the hearts of many. Unfortunately, Sora, this means that when she comes of age at eighteen, she must leave the Destiny Islands and forsake them as her home."

"That's okay," said Sora. "Our destinies are tied together. Besides, it seems like traveling between the worlds is what my life is pretty much about anyway. I think we'll cross paths easily."

* * *

Xehanort pounded on the door of the quarters of the One Winged Angel. "Sephiroth!" he cried. "Sephiroth, open this door!"

"No" was the answer from within.

"Sephiroth, I specifically sent YOU the message asking YOU to lead the Trickmaster assault on the resistance! Had you been there, Sora would be dead by now! Why did you hand the job over to Redd?"

"Because I cannot show my face," said Sephiroth, "and will not kill Sora…which, rest assured, I WILL do eventually…until I am fit to leave the room!"

"How can you POSSIBLY be unfit to leave the room?" Xehanort performed a quick Alohomora on the door and barged into the room to come face-to-face with the stitched-up Sephiroth.

"Ew," Xehanort squeaked involuntarily.

"I know!" Sephiroth screamed.

"Can you not rebuild yourself from more of Jenova's cells?" Xehanort asked.

"I could," said Sephiroth, "if I hadn't torn Jenova to pieces."

Xehanort was beginning to think that Sephiroth was a stupider man than he had originally imagined.

"I should have known better than to do it," said Sephiroth. "This isn't the only consequence it brought me. You see, Jenova was cast from her own world by her mother Micaiah, the Silver-Haired Maiden of Miracles, because of her evil nature. Unfortunately, once Jenova was dead, Micaiah decided that 'Jenny' was still her darling daughter and came after me for revenge."

"Micaiah…" Xehanort pondered the name. "Could you not use some of her blood instead? She was a powerful mage."

"How do you know that? Never mind. While Micaiah's blood would have worked, I cannot use it, for I killed her as well when she came after me, and I killed her husband Sothe when he came to avenge Micaiah."

"If Micaiah had another relative," said Xehanort, "one you knew nothing about, would you be able to use that blood to rebuild your skin?"

"Perhaps…" Sephiroth thought out loud. "If it was a direct descendant…"

"How lucky you are." Xehanort smiled.

"Why am I so lucky?"

"Because Sora seems to have amongst his coterie the only son of Micaiah."

* * *

A/N: "Fiery Fantasies" carries more detail on Jenova and Micaiah; "Crushed" tells the tale of Zexion and Marluxia's forbidden romance.


	13. A Pirate's Near Death for Me

13

13: A Pirate's Near-Death for Me

After the party had climbed from the rabbit hole, Sora shrugged and asked, "Where should we go now?"

"Funny you should ask," said Minnie. "The gummi hangar got burned down with the castle, but if you're in need of transportation…"

Mickey gasped. "You don't mean…!"

"Yes. The Magical Glee is still unharmed in the harbor…and goodness knows, it's been known to go off to some strange places."

"What's that?" Sora asked.

"The Magical Glee is the royal ship of Disney Castle," Mickey explained. "We used to use it all the time, but it kept accidentally crossing worlds without our predicting it."

"Well," said Goofy, "now that we're actually tryin' to get ta new worlds, we just gotta give it a try!"

"Well, then!" said Minnie. "Come with me, and you'll all board the Magical Glee!"

"What do you mean 'you'll'?" Sora asked. "Aren't you coming with us?"

Minnie giggled. "Sora, I can't exactly fight."

"Neither can I," said Daisy. "Besides, these shoes are new. I'm not getting the heel broken off on some silly adventure."

Donald rolled his eyes.

Tarzan approached Jane. "Jane should stay with Minnie."

"What?" Jane was stubborn. "That is unfair! I only JUST got to join the adventure!"

"Jane will be safer here," said Tarzan.

"I assure you," said her father, "I shall look after her."

Terk nodded, indicating that she too wanted to stay.

"Well," Jane scoffed, "this won't be the last you see of me."

"You know what?" said Iago. "I'd better stay too. Don't wanna be a nuisance, you know."

"You've always been a coward," Aladdin teased.

"Well, cowards have longer life spans!" Iago argued.

Minnie led the party down a long path to get to a harbor sheltered by cliffs. Anchored near the shore was a sparkling, golden ship with tall masts and burgundy sails adorned with the mouse-head silhouette symbol of the King. The words "Magical Glee" were emblazoned on the side in bubbly letters.

"She's a fine ship," Jack Sparrow observed.

"Don't even THINK about hijacking it," spat Donald.

"What made you think I was gonna do that?" Sparrow said, trying to sound innocent.

"Well," said Sora, "you're Captain Jack Sparrow."

"Right you are there."

"Well, let's go!" The members of the resistance boarded the ship. As it set sail for the blue beyond, those aboard waved goodbye to Minnie, Daisy, Chip, Dale, the triplets, the other various residents of Disney Castle, Jane, the Professor, Terk, and Iago.

"Where do you think we're headed next?" Sora asked no one in particular.

"We're headed for another great adventure," said Kairi, excitedly leaning over the rail. The late afternoon sun created a golden shine on her newly acquired crown.

"You know…" Sora blushed. "You look really good in that gown."

"Thanks," said Kairi, also blushing.

"I have to agree," Riku chimed in. "You look WAY better than Luxord did in it."

Sparrow pulled his trusty compass from his pocket. He flipped open the cover and observed the position of the needle. "We're going that way," he said, pointing.

Mickey steered the ship in that direction. "So we're heading toward whatever it is you want most?"

"I think we all want the same thing about this point," said Sparrow.

"That means," said Riku, "we're either headed for the key to stopping Xehanort, or the multiverse's largest stock of rum."

* * *

"We're in another world already," Mulan observed.

"What is this place?" Aladdin asked.

"Impossible," said Sparrow. "This can NOT be the thing I wanted most!"

"Why?" asked Sora. "What is it?"

"You can say a lot about Captain Jack Sparrow," said the Captain. "He's sensitive. Smart. A romantic. Rather handsome. Adventurous. Courageous."

"Egotistic," added Axel, "and constantly referring to himself in the third person."

Sparrow shrugged that off. "But the one thing you can NEVER say about Captain Jack Sparrow is that he gets HOMESICK!"

"This is Port Royal, isn't it?" Sora was suddenly excited to see the world of pirates again.

"Then we'd better not look like we're so rich," said Donald. He changed all of the party's clothes to those of pirates…except for Kairi, whose gown remained that of the Queen of Heart, for even pirates had to respect HER.

"Pirates?" Xigbar's face suddenly perked up. "Awesome! I wanna be a pirate!"

"That's doing nothing for people with eyepatches, love," Luxord pointed out. "You're being extremely stereotypical."

"Are you saying a guy with an eyepatch can't want to be a pirate?" Xigbar pouted. "That's discrimination."

The two became wrapped up in a heated argument about this.

"Stereotypical."

"Discrimination."

"Stereotypical."

"Discrimination!"

"STEREOTYPICAL!"

* * *

"Is that them?" the zombie pirate asked from his perch on the side of the Flying Dutchman.

The captain of the Dutchman lifted a golden, monogrammed telescope to his eye. "Indeed," he said. He fluidly flicked the telescope back to its short state and hastily stuffed it into his waistcoat. "Give the order to summon the Kraken. Jack Sparrow won't be escaping this time."

* * *

"What's that?" asked Ariel. She felt the ship rocking from strange vibrations in the water below. She had lived in the ocean long enough to know that when strange vibrations crossed the water, that meant something large and dangerous was on its way.

"Well," said Sparrow, "the only thing I can think of that would make the ship rock like that is…oh dear…something that surely means we're all dead."

"What's that?" Sora asked, shuddering.

Upon hearing the word "dead", Myed immediately dashed over to a barrel and hid in it, sealing the lid over his head.

"That," said Sparrow, pointing to an ominous blob inching its way through the dark waters, "would be the Kraken."

"Any way to avoid it?" Sora asked, knowing the answer already.

"Afraid not."

The passengers of the Glee went into a wild panic of screams as ten monstrously thick tentacles wrapped themselves around the hull and squeezed the ship till it splintered. Fragments of wood broke from the sides and rained into the water. Beings splashed down toward what they hoped wouldn't be their doom.

Finally, with one last crack, the ship was obliterated.

The Kraken's work was done.

* * *

The salt water stung Marluxia's eyes; it was all he could do to keep his wits around him. He knew he should start swimming for the surface, and then for shore…but which way was shore? And better yet, after that harrowing toss which had flipped him round and round, which way was the SURFACE?

He didn't panic. He hardly ever panicked. But it would be an understatement to say he was relieved when he felt a hand grip his own and a guiding tug in the right direction.

Marluxia pried his eyes open. Zexion had come for him, and was using his free hand to beckon him in a direction. They swam upwards.

Once they broke the surface, Marluxia instinctively clung to Zexion. "That…that was…"

"Horrible. I know."

"We've got to get to the shore. Which way do you think?"

Zexion lifted his face to meet the blowing air. "I smell earth and people, close by…in that direction." He extended an arm.

The two took off that way.

* * *

"SPARROW!" a plaintive voice called.

Sparrow, who was by that time treading water, looked about to see who had called him. "Riku!"

Riku paddled closer to Sparrow. "Where's everyone else?" Tears welled up in his eyes from the fear that he was alone.

"I don't know," said Sparrow, "but I'll wager they'll turn up soon."

"Let's use the compass to find them," Riku suggested.

"You think we can tread water forever?" said Sparrow. "I'm using it to find land first."

"But what if they're somewhere out there, in the sea?"

"Then I'm afraid to say they're already dead, mate."

* * *

Kairi fought the water as hard as she could. She wanted to get to the surface, but her heavy gown had become waterlogged and was dragging her down.

Sora saw her sinking. He couldn't lose her. He dove down deep to grab ahold of her hand, bring her to the surface…

But by the time he got there, they were already too deep down. They blacked out.

* * *

Larxene had been flung in a far-off direction. No one of the party would find her. Not even the collector of the dead would find her yet.

Which was a pity, as her element did not react well with the water.

* * *

Ariel dove deeper in order to escape the Kraken. She had done this so many times before as a mermaid.

She didn't take into account that she was still in her human form, and lacking gills.

She made this realization when she was too far down to reach the surface and sweet air.

* * *

All Myed needed to do was reopen the barrel and climb out. Then he could breathe in the sweet water and swim about, finding the others.

Unfortunately for him, the lid of the barrel had become tightly stuck, and the barrel itself was airtight.

He was running out of air quickly.

* * *

All Axel knew was the burning…the horrible, horrible burning that consumed him…and the feeling of fading…

Until he was hoisted upward by some unknown savior.

* * *

Axel was plunked down on the soggy green deck of a ship that appeared to be made of bones and sea detritus. He looked to his left. He was on the end of a line of weary beings that included Myed, Sora, Ariel, Kairi, and Skellington.

A creature—a nasty fusion of pirate and hammerhead shark—approached the line of prisoners, for that was indeed what they had become. Another pirate, this one with a hermit-crab shaped head tucked in a conical shell, joined the shark.

"How did these end up here?" the crab asked.

"Well," said the shark, "the three redheads and the smaller boy got here by almost drowning. The taller boy was sealed inside a barrel. And that one…well…it looks like he's been dead for QUITE some time. Hideous, frankly."

"Thank you!" said Skellington, unaware that it wasn't a compliment.

"What's going on here?" Sora demanded.

"Well," said the shark, "you are aboard the infamous Flying Dutchman. This ship takes aboard those who die or nearly die at sea, and you all nearly died, with the exception of the skeleton, who is OBVIOUSLY long dead. Now, this would usually be the time where Captain Jones comes to you one by one and asks you if you fear death, but he is currently detained, and neither the stand-in captain nor any of the crew has the authority to do the same. So instead of sending you to Hell or pressing you into servitude, we're just going to lock you up instead."

"Well," said Axel, "given the three options, I'll take that one."

"Cheeky, eh?" said the crab. "Should we just slit this one's throat and be done with it?"

"I would," said the shark, "but to invoke the wrath of Jones…we had better just lock them up and wait for his return."

* * *

"Just as I thought," said Sparrow. "Land. And look where we are, Riku!"

Riku clambered out of the cruel ocean to observe his surroundings. A town lay before him, but it looked extremely undesirable. From every house came either the sounds of a brawl or a drunken party. The men in the streets were unshaven and furtive while the women were promiscuous and heavily made up. The entire area stunk of pig, and to confirm that the smell was indeed pig, a herd of pigs walked freely through the manure-covered streets.

"Bless my eyes, this be Tortuga!" Sparrow announced.

"You're…happy to see this place?" Riku was quite perplexed. Then again, it was Sparrow.

Riku suddenly whirled around when he heard the sound of someone paddling their way to shore…rather, two someones.

"Zexion!" he cried. "Marluxia!"

"We made it," Marluxia panted.

Zexion simply sat on the sand and smiled slightly.

"Did you see any of the others?" Riku asked expectantly.

Zexion shook his head. "Not a scent. Hopefully this just means they all went the exact opposite direction we did."

"What IS this place?" said Marluxia, wrinkling up his nose. "I can smell the abundance of beer from this far away."

"Imagine how MY poor nose feels," Zexion groaned. "Oh, the stench…"

"Ain't it lovely?" sighed Sparrow. "'Tis the natural aroma of Tortuga. Come on, lads. It's time to see if they still remember me down at the old pub!"

"I'd rather not…" Riku started, but Sparrow had already taken off at a run.

"We had better not get separated any further," Zexion pointed out as he stood up and brushed the sand off his cloak.

Marluxia sighed. "If we must…"

* * *

Sparrow led them all to a basement bar, where the clientele looked even tougher than the people on the street.

"Have a seat, me boys," said Sparrow, pulling out a chair for the other three. "I'll get us drinks. Anyone bothers you, just tell 'em you came with Captain Jack Sparrow!"

He left to greet the bartender before Riku could protest that he was underage, Zexion could yell that he didn't want to cloud his senses with alcohol, or Marluxia could point out that his plant essence couldn't handle liquor.

On the way, Sparrow was distracted. Sitting alone at a table was a bedraggled man whose face was nearly extinguished by his hair, facial and otherwise. The man sat hunched over a large mug, and what was visible of his eyes reflected depression.

Sparrow got closer to the man to see if he was who the captain truly suspected he was…and indeed he was.

"James Norrington!" he cried. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?"

Norrington looked up at Sparrow. "Jack…" he growled. "Pirate…I swear…" His face fell. "But I haven't the strength or the will to go after you anymore. Death was harsh enough."

"That's right," said Sparrow, "you did make a rather untimely departure from this world. Tell me, how did you come back?"

"A bright blue demon calling himself the Lord of the Dead came to the End of the World," said Norrington, shaking as he recalled Hades' fearsome appearance. "His head was afire, and his height was much greater than that of an ordinary man. He said he had come to restore the Flying Dutchman to its TRUE captain…and he brought Davy Jones and one other from the land of the dead to the surface here. I asked if I could join them, and the demon found no reason to say no. He said that in the past I had exhibited a great amount of darkness in my heart…and he admired that…and he hoped I would give over to it once more. Yet since I have come here, I have not felt as though I knew my true place in this world."

"Well, that's unfortunate," said Sparrow, not really caring about the fate of Norrington. "Can you tell me who this 'other' was that the demon brought back with Jones?"

"The demon said that Jones had to join him and his band of Enforcers for a short while," explained the sad Norrington, "and therefore, the Dutchman needed a stand-in captain—"

Norrington's story was interrupted when Sparrow's shoulder was gripped by a man more fearsome than any of the drunken pirates of Tortuga. He may have been decked out in pirate regalia and a three-cornered hat, but neither his oddly colored hair nor his gruesome face could be hidden from the public.

He spun Sparrow around him to converse with him, face to dismembered face.

"Hello, Jack Sparrow," Sephiroth growled.

* * *

As Sora and crew were being dragged toward the prison cells by an army of fishy pirates, they all expressed their own personal disappointment (except for Skellington, who was too busy staring at various parts of the ship and crying, "What's this? What's this?")

"I feel so stupid," said Ariel. "If only I had remembered…if I hadn't tried to breathe when I couldn't…I could have gotten to safety!"

"I'm so sorry, Sora," said Kairi. "If I hadn't been dragged down, you wouldn't have come with me, and you wouldn't be here now…"

"Don't worry," Sora assured his beloved. "I couldn't let you drown, and I wouldn't have wanted you to suffer this alone. I'm happier this way."

"Myed…" Axel cast his face downward. "If I hadn't been too wrapped up in my own pain…if I had just looked around…I could have broken you out of that barrel. I apologize. You wouldn't be here either…"

Myed shrugged it off. "You know my luck. I would have ended up here or worse one way or another. You had nothing to do with it."

"Halt!" a prim British voice called out. "These are the prisoners?"

"Yes, my Lord," said the shark-pirate.

The six were forced to their knees so the newcomer could look them over.

The newcomer was hideous. His face was murky green, ringed in the twitching legs of a horseshoe crab. The crab shell replaced his hair beneath his perfectly poised hat, and the spiny tail draped down his back like a tight ponytail. In contrast to his grotesque appearance, the man was dressed impeccably in the height of the fashion of the era. Not a wrinkle or an odd fold was to be seen in his ensemble.

"The Keybearer," he said. "How interesting. The Queen of Heart…a fortunate catch. I have heard that this young lady is royalty as well. The skeleton disgusts me…he looks as though he already IS part of our crew…and I don't know why the Chosen One fusses so about this skinny one with the odd hair. He doesn't look capable of chewing his own meat. But this one…the one with hair like fire…" He stepped closer to Axel. "You are a strange case. You and I share something very important in common."

"And what's that?" Axel spat, struggling against the pressing hands of the man's lackeys.

"You and I both lack a heart," said the horseshoe crab, "only I will regain mine as soon as the captain returns."

The crab turned to the rest of the zombies. "Take them to the prison cells. There they shall await the judgment of Jones."

"Right away, Lord Beckett," the shark answered, and the six were dragged to the cells below.

* * *

"I seek the son of Micaiah, the Silver-Haired Maiden," Sephiroth hissed to Sparrow. "He's here with you."

Sparrow's thoughts were racing. Silver hair…there with Jack…

Oh no.

Riku.

Even though he and Riku had done little but argue, Sparrow knew he had to protect the boy with all he had. "He's not here with me," said Sparrow.

"Do not attempt to trick me," Sephiroth hissed. "I see him, there, at that table, with the two others of your party."

Sparrow gulped. "Erm…"

"Listen, Sparrow," said Sephiroth. His breath floated right into Jack's face. For one of such a rotten soul, Sephiroth had breath that smelled of succulent summer air: a wondrous contrast to the filthy stink of Tortuga's taverns. "I will not need to harm you yet. I merely request that you bring the boy to me. You shall not regret it."

The fallen angel opened his hands. Across his palms lay a mountain of gold. "And there is more gold than even this for you should you comply," he informed Jack.

Sparrow was tempted. He truly was. However, beneath his greedy exterior, he carried a good heart. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline," he said ever so smoothly.

"Then die at my hand," said Sephiroth, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword.

"Now wait a minute, wait a minute!" Jack cried, causing the angel to stay his hand. All Jack needed to do was come up with some sort of clever plan…had he not done so several times before?

Or perhaps he had just been lucky.

That luck, so characteristic of Jack Sparrow's life, had by no means run out. He and his party were suddenly saved by a great diversion in green that burst through the door of the tavern, levitating several feet off the ground.

"AVAST, PIRATES!" Peter Pan cried, brandishing his dagger. "You're dealing with Peter Pan now! I've fought many pirates before, and I can take you all down too!"

All the pirates in the pub got to their feet, eager to prove Pan wrong. Sephiroth's eyes flicked upward to the sprite for but a moment.

In the tumult, Jack escaped and made his way back to the table.

"Is that…?" Riku asked, pointing up to Peter.

"Yes, it is," said Sparrow. "But listen, Riku. Sephiroth's here, and he's after you. I advise getting out of here as fast as we can."

In all the confusion, Sephiroth could not visually locate Sparrow, Riku, Zexion, or Marluxia. All four had escaped via the door and were by that time running through the streets of Tortuga as fast as their feet could carry them.

Riku only cast one backward glance at the squat building, hearing the excited yelps and rooster crows of Pan as he nimbly escaped every single pirate that tried to skewer him.


	14. Silver Haired

14

14: Silver-Haired

Jack Sparrow, Riku, Marluxia, and Zexion were heading for the hills, so to speak. They didn't know how long they had before Sephiroth broke free of the pub and rushed after them.

Sparrow was having a hectic enough day, what with the recent shipwreck, the scuffle in the bar, the escape from the bar, and the fact that the only opportunity to get rich he had just found thus far was offered to him as a bribe he HAD to refuse, as much as he felt like trading Riku in some days. However, there was just one more thing Jack didn't need, and it was this:

"Hey! YOU OWE ME A NEW BOAT!"

"Oh, no…"

Jack slowly, reluctantly turned to see an enraged woman, dressed in trousers and a white shirt, stomping toward him with fire in her eyes.

"Who's that?" asked Marluxia.

"Some people like to call it Anamaria," Jack sighed.

Anamaria stormed right up to Jack, looking him in the eye. "Take the Pearl from me, eh? Promise me the Interceptor, eh? Well, now you've got the Pearl, and the Interceptor is lying across Davy Jones' locker! Why do I get the feeling this is YOUR fault?"

"It wasn't me!" Sparrow put up his hands defensively. "If I ever find him, I'll SHOW you the man what did it! Name of Luxord! Cocky fellow with a gambling problem!"

"Why do I not believe you?" Anamaria spat. "And what, may I ask, has become of the Pearl?"

"Lying on the floor of an altogether different ocean," explained Sparrow. "Again, very much not my fault."

"You broke your word!"

"I promised you the Interceptor. You got the Interceptor."

"You promised me a SHIP!"

"Erm…well…"

Screams suddenly came from the streets behind them. "Oh dear," said Sparrow, "that would be him figuring out we're not in the bar and coming after us…"

"What have you done NOW?" Anamaria shrieked.

"Tell you what," said Sparrow. "I'll get you your boat. Don't worry about that. But in return, you've got to help us get away from THAT guy."

"WHAT guy?"

"The one chasing us. And believe me, you want to get out of his way before you see him."

"Deal," growled Anamaria, "but only because I don't want to suffer whatever fate this man has planned for you either. And you had better hold up your end of the bargain!"

The now expanded group of five took off running for the town limits.

"One more thing, dear," said Sparrow.

"And what is that?"

"Should this fellow happen to catch up with us…you should prepare yourself for a fight."

* * *

"Urgh…"

Several pirates lay bruised in a heap on the floor of the tavern.

"Take that, codfishes!" Peter Pan cried before leaping out the window and searching for more pirates to fight.

* * *

King Mickey opened his eyes. "Where am I?" he asked no one in particular. He looked around. The other members of the resistance were sprawled out on the same shore as him. Some were awake. Some were unconscious. Some were missing. Mickey counted off who was gone…Sora, Kairi, Skellington, Ariel, Axel, Myed, Riku, Zexion, Marluxia, Larxene, Peter, and Sparrow.

He hung his head, hoping nothing horrible had happened to his strong allies and dear friends.

"Uh, Mickey?"

Mickey turned to see Goofy behind him. "Yes, Goofy?"

"I think I know where we are! See that town over there? That's the town of Port Royal! That's where Will and Elizabeth live!"

"Though I shouldn't," said a new voice, one of serenity and strength. Will Turner, his wife Elizabeth, and their young son had joined Mickey and Goofy on the beach.

"Will Turner!" cried Goofy. "Good ta see ya!" He pumped Will's hand in an energetic shake. "And it's Elizabeth, too!" he said, repeating the handshake with a great grin. "And who's this?"

"Our son, James," said Elizabeth proudly…but there was a hint of melancholy in her voice.

"Will Turner?" Merlin sat up and rushed toward him. "No, no, no. This is simply not right…not right at all…"

"I couldn't agree more," Will said sadly.

"What's wrong?" Mickey asked.

"Will is supposed to be the captain of the Flying Dutchman," said Merlin, "and the ferryman of the dead."

"Unfortunately," said Will, "when Davy Jones and Cutler Beckett unexpectedly came back from the dead, they deposed me from that position and took over the Dutchman once more. Immediately, it returned to the deplorable state it had been in before I captained it. Even worse, the captain and Lord Beckett have still got my heart locked up somewhere on board that ship."

"So you're a Nobody too," groaned Xaldin.

"Join the club," said Xigbar.

"Unfortunately," said Elizabeth, "while we have heard of those who exist without hearts…it is different for the captain of the Flying Dutchman. If the captain, the ship, and the heart are separated…the captain only has ten days to live. And since Beckett has willingly given his heart over to the ship, he may very well become the new captain if Will dies, unless Jones returns first." Her eyes stung with tears as she pondered the possibility of her love dying.

"Well," said Hercules, sitting up, "you've come to the right people. We're here to set everything that went wrong right again."

"We'll get you back your ship and your heart," said Mulan, furrowing her brow in determination.

"And that Beckett fellow can simply kiss the position goodbye," said Luxord.

"I thank you," said Will, "for your sympathy."

"It's no problem!" said Mickey. "Helpin' people out is what we do!"

It finally dawned on Xigbar. "Wait a minute…captain? Are you a real PIRATE?"

"Actually, no. 'Ferryman of the Dead' is the proper title."

Xigbar ignored Will completely. He rushed to observe him, squealing, "Dude! A real pirate! I'm so jealous! I want to be just like you!"

"Is this one all right in the head?" Will asked.

"We've never been exactly sure," Xaldin responded honestly.

* * *

Sparrow and crew had left Tortuga a while ago on foot. They ran through the forest of tropical trees, hoping Sephiroth had lost their trail.

They stopped in a clearing. "I don't think your madman is after us," Anamaria pointed out.

"You can never be too careful…" Sparrow gingerly looked all around him. Unfortunately, the one direction he didn't look was the direction from which his pursuer came: up.

Sephiroth landed on his hands and feet, absorbing the shock from the descent with his bent limbs. He straightened up to face the party. "Looks like game over," he challenged.

Riku couldn't stop staring at Sephiroth's back. The angel had one full gray wing, just as he had when Riku last saw him, though the feathers of the wing now looked hastily sewn together in awkward clumps. Sprouting from the other shoulder, however, was a smaller but more batlike black wing.

"I thought you only had one wing," Riku breathed.

"I did." Sephiroth smiled. "I got the other one from a certain FRIEND of Sora's. Now I demand that what I want is given to me, or you shall all die an unnecessary, painful death!"

Sparrow stood between Sephiroth and Riku. "You'll have to go through me first!"

Anamaria was stunned by Jack's sudden sense of protectiveness, but she took her place next to him. "And I as well," she growled.

"And me!" said Marluxia, drawing his scythe and stepping to Jack's other side.

Zexion deliberately walked out in front of Sparrow, gripping the Lexicon tightly and with purpose. "First," he snarled, "you shall have to go through me."

Sephiroth laughed. He laughed long and loud. He threw his head back as he cackled. He then brought mounds of gold from his pockets and threw them to the ground harshly.

"What was that for?" Jack asked, suspicious.

"Because," said Sephiroth, "Jack Sparrow, you have managed…though it be by complete error…to give me exactly what I want!"

Before anyone could question him…

Before anyone could draw a weapon on him…

Sephiroth pounced. He took his prisoner in one arm…not a difficult thing to do, as his quarry stood right in front of him in the open.

The angel spread his wings and darted off into the sky, Zexion clutched to his side. The last thing the others heard the Schemer scream before he left earshot was "MARLYYYYYYYYYY!"

"NO!" Marluxia stretched his hand up to the sky, as though he could pluck Zexion from it and bring him back down.

Then the remaining four stood in the clearing, stunned.

"So," Riku said at last, "explain to me EXACTLY why you thought Sephiroth was looking for ME."

"He said he wanted the son of the silver-haired maiden!" Jack said in his defense.

"And it never occurred to you that he could have meant ZEXION?" Riku bellowed.

"Of course not!" Sparrow retorted. "That man's hair is BLUE!"

Riku stood and stared at Sparrow for a long time. Then he lowered his head into his hand for what seemed like the thousandth time since the adventure had begun. "You…idiot."

"Hey!" Sparrow yelled. "With the way you carry on doubting my intelligence, sometimes I wonder if protecting you was really worth it!"

* * *

Atop the highest stone peak of the Isla de Muerta, Sephiroth stood looking out over the ocean's glow in the moon. Zexion stood behind him, watching his winged back and the silver hair that gently blew in the wind.

"What do you want from me?" Zexion cried.

"Simple," said Sephiroth, not taking his eyes off the ocean. "Like Jenova, you have the blood of Micaiah, the Silver Haired Maiden. I was worried at first that since you were the Nobody of her son Ienzo, rather than the actual Ienzo, your blood wouldn't be able to heal me. But Xehanort assured me that the genetics were sound. Your blood is indeed what I need to be restored to my former glory."

All it took was the mention of the name "Micaiah"…

And he remembered…

* * *

A family lives in Daein. They seem like the perfect family: there is a mother, a father, a son, and a daughter. The daughter is a few years older than the son. Both have inherited their mother's silver hair, although it is darkened by the influence of the teal hair of their father. The children have also inherited Micaiah's great powers, which she herself inherited from the great magician Merlin.

Micaiah's tome of Light, which she also calls the Lexicon, is sitting on the top shelf of the very tall bookshelf.

Six-year-old Ienzo is curious. He loves books. He has read all the stories in his own collection many times. When he comes across a book that is beyond his reading level—an occurrence that gets rarer and rarer, as his intellect is growing quickly—he still has to run his hands over the cover, flick the pages with his thumb, smell the paper, hold it close. He absolutely loves books.

He wants to see the Lexicon, which his mother has set so carefully out of bounds. He runs to the kitchen and brings out a chair. He stands on the chair, trying ever so hard to reach the tome, but he is still too short. He is small, even for his age.

He shifts a foot to the thin back of the chair, hoping to launch himself up momentarily and grab the book. The plan does not work. The chair falls over backward, taking Ienzo with it. His head tumbles forward and hits the corner of the chair. The pain is incredible. He feels blood running down his forehead and begins to sob.

Jenny is the first to hear the thump. She comes running in, giggling with delight. Unlike Ienzo, with his communication skills that surpassed his years, she does not say anything intelligible, though she knows how to talk. She takes pleasure in one thing: others' torment.

Jenny sees her brother lying on the floor. She rushes to him immediately in order to find the wound. What at first seems like an attempt to heal is in fact a more sinister gesture. She finds the thin gash and drives her fingernails into it, making it wider. She does not care that the screams of agony are those of her own brother; they are music to her ears.

Micaiah and Sothe, the parents, come running into the room when they hear the screams. "JENOVA!" Sothe screams. He knows what to do; he has needed to do this many times before when she has assaulted Ienzo or one of her playmates from the village. He runs to capture her in his arms, dragging her into the corner and locking her in his tough embrace while she kicks and screams. However, Jenny is getting older and harder to control. Sothe sweats as he tries to keep her in check.

In the meantime, Micaiah rushes to tend to her darling Ienzo. "Ienzo, my light," she croons, standing over the wounded boy. Her eyes travel to the source of the blood on his forehead. "Did Jenny do this?" she asked.

Ienzo closed his tear-filled eyes and shook his head. "N-no. She just made it worse. It was my fault I got it."

Micaiah places her hand over Ienzo's forehead.

"Micaiah!" Sothe scolds.

"It's okay," she reassures her husband. "It's only a small injury."

She pours some of her own energy into Ienzo's cut, using the healing spell known as Sacrifice. She will be sapped of strength for a while, but Ienzo's forehead is now whole, and the blood is gone.

"I'm sorry," the boy sobs. "I only wanted to see the Lexicon. I…I shouldn't have tried to reach it."

"That's right," said Micaiah. "It's dangerous! You will see it when you are older…when you are ready." She kisses the spot on his forehead where he was hurt, scoops him into her arms. She would pick him up, but she is still weak from the Sacrifice and so he must stay on the ground. "Don't be sad, though. You know you made a mistake. I'm not angry with you, and neither is your father." She has to speak for Sothe because he is still grappling with the violent Jenova. "The wound is healed. Go on and play, now. Or read some of your books."

"Thank you, Mother," says Ienzo.

A few nights later, Ienzo is just walking from his bedroom to the kitchen to get himself some water. On the way, he hears his parents talking from behind their bedroom door.

"I don't know what to do about Jenova anymore," says Sothe. "She's becoming too large and powerful to control. I'm afraid that one of these days, she will really kill Ienzo."

"I'm afraid of what we may have to do," says Micaiah, concerned.

"Perhaps we shall cast her to another world, where there are others like her, or at least strong enough to put up with her."

"It does not seem like such a horrible idea," Micaiah sighs. "However…before that…an interesting opportunity arose to me today. It will ensure Ienzo's protection."

"What is that?"

"I met a man in the marketplace today. You have no doubt heard of the genius Ansem the Wise?"

"Yes…"

"This was him in the flesh."

"But he lives in a different world…"

"He can travel between the worlds. He came here on a vacation, but when word reached him of Ienzo's powers and higher-than-average marks in the school…he came to me and offered to take Ienzo as one of his apprentices for his studies back in Radiant Garden."

Ienzo's eyes widen. Does Micaiah really want him to leave?

"Are you sure about this, Micaiah?"

"I trust Ansem greatly, Sothe. I have faith in Ienzo that he can rise to the challenge. And most importantly, Sothe…I want to get him away from Jenova until we can figure out what to do with her."

Ienzo starts crying again. He knows he is going to have to leave his home and family.

"You hear that?" says Sothe.

Even though Ienzo knows he has been caught eavesdropping, he does not feel the will to move. The door opens, and his father sees him.

"Ienzo?" Sothe asks. "How much have you heard?"

"You want to send me away," Ienzo wails. "I don't want to leave Daein!"

"Ienzo." Sothe kneels to place his hand on his son's soft hair. "We don't want you to leave Daein either, but you have to understand, it is for your own safety, not to mention the great opportunities that will arise for you if you work for Ansem the Wise!"

"I know that," Ienzo cries, "and I understand that. But I'll miss you so much! And I'll miss my home! And I'll miss my school! Everything there will be unfamiliar, and I don't want to go!"

Sothe picks Ienzo up and cradles him in his arms. "You won't have to go away for a while," he says, "and you'll see us a lot. I promise."

"Okay." The boy sniffles.

"Now, let's go back to bed," says Sothe, carrying Ienzo back to his bedroom. "I'll read you one of your stories before you go to sleep, all right?"

"I can read them for myself, you know."

"I know you still like it when I read them to you," said Sothe. "Don't try to lie."

"You got me."

Sothe reads him a story, then tucks him in. "Goodnight, Ienzo," he says. "Remember, no matter what happens, your mother and I will always love you."

Micaiah ties Ienzo's cravat on the day of his departure. It has only been two weeks since he first heard that he would have to leave.

"Too tight," he complains, struggling against the accessory.

Micaiah considers her job done, and steps back to admire Ienzo, all dolled up in dress clothes. "You have to look your best to make a good impression," she says.

There is a knock on the door. It is Ansem.

Once he enters, events fly by quickly. Jenny has been locked in her room so as not to hurt anyone. Ansem has a way of making Ienzo feel comfortable, and suddenly he doesn't feel so bad about leaving.

He knows he will miss his parents, though, and he gives Sothe and Micaiah each a tender hug with his tiny arms before leaving with Ansem.

He promises to come back and see them.

They promise to visit him as soon as they can.

Neither of them know that Micaiah and Sothe will die before Ienzo reaches age seven.

* * *

"Of course," Sephiroth muttered, "it would have been so much easier had I not killed both Micaiah and Jenova to begin with…"

It hit Zexion like a steamroller:

Sephiroth killed his mother.

Sephiroth probably killed his father too.

Sephiroth was the reason he was left almost all alone but for Ansem and his apprentices.

SEPHIROTH NEEDED TO DIE.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Zexion screeched, lunging at Sephiroth.

Sephiroth spun to face him, surprised…but confident.

* * *

Peter Pan soared through the murky sky, looking out for new pirates to battle.

"Hey!" he cried to himself. "That looks like a tough pirate ship!" He made a graceful dive for the ship.

What a stroke of luck it was, that the first pirate ship to come within Pan's sights was the Flying Dutchman.

* * *

Xehanort, Voldemort, and Saint Dane gathered in Xehanort's chambers.

"I want to thank you for giving me the means to live on after Sora killed me," Xehanort said to Voldemort. "However, I have the feeling I shall need MORE of them."

"It is best to have six." Voldemort grinned. "However, you have to be extremely careful when you're making them. Splitting your soul is no joke. I had a Death Eater who I believed dead after she tried to make one of her own and the magic backfired. However, interestingly enough, I happened to run into what seemed like a hollow form of her…I believe you call that her "Nobody"…during the night of your ambush."

"Thank you, Voldemort," said Xehanort. "You are dismissed."

Once Voldemort had left, Xehanort turned to Dane, doubt for once showing in his eyes. "Dane…are you sure this is the best way to go about it?"

"Trust me," said Dane. "If anyone knows anything about how to control the feeble Halla, it is me."

"But the methods I am using to cheat death…they were your idea. Are you sure the science is sound?"

"Listen, Xehanort," said Dane, settling a hand on the Superior's shoulder. "Who was it that saved your life so often in the past?"

"You," Xehanort sighed.

"And who isn't going to let you die again?"

Xehanort looked Dane right in the eye and growled, "You, brother."

* * *

A/N: James Turner belongs partially to Wallofillusion.


End file.
